The Madness of Our Endeavors
by The Island Hopper
Summary: When a miscalculation threatens the survival of Hill Valley itself, Jules, Verne, Marty and the intrepid Doc Brown must find a solution, or risk their own timelines and their own survival – that is, if  the Brown brothers don't destroy each other first.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **The Madness of our Endeavors  
><strong>Author: <strong>The Island Hopper  
><strong>Rated T for a wee bit of language<strong>  
><strong>Frequency of Updates: <strong>Weekly until finished.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>When a miscalculation threatens the survival of Hill Valley itself, Jules, Verne, Marty and the intrepid Doc Brown must find a solution, or risk their own timelines and their own survival – that is, if the Brown brothers don't destroy each other first. A multi-timeline story.

**Author's Notes (Please read, they are helpful!)**

I'm going to try to get all of the author's notes out of the way here in the beginning of this first chapter, so that I don't have to clutter up any of the other chapters with them! Just a few things to keep in mind with this story:

Firstly, this story is going to be pretty long (novella length), so fair warning has been imparted for those who prefer shorter stories or one shots. It will be updated with a new chapter every week or so.

Secondly, I based some material in this story, including the personalities of Jules and Verne, on the mostly-atrocious _Back to the Future _cartoon that ran on television in the early 1990's. So, if you're wondering why Jules speaks the way he does, or why Verne acts the way he does, or why in the world the Brown family lived in the 1990's, you can consider it _loosely canon-based, _if you count the animated series as having any impact on movie-canon. I was the target demographic age at the time the show ran, which should give you some clue of my age - I am an old school BTTF fan, but this is my first (and probably only) BTTF story. If you're curious, almost all of the episodes are on YouTube (and they are all introduced by Doc Brown himself and his lab assistant, a then-unknown Bill Nye).

Thirdly, no Biff Tannen or progeny in this story. Appropriate apologies to Biff fans.

**Lastly, and most importantly, **this story switches back and forth from present day to the past, so please please please pay attention to the "time stamps" at the beginning of each chapter. They're very important!

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><p><strong>The Madness of Our Endeavors<strong>

_ Chapter 1 - Homecoming_

**June 23rd, 2011**  
><strong>1:23am<strong>

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, really.

A clap of thunder sent rumbling vibrations through the asphalt of the highway, making the man driving in the beat-up green Honda SUV shiver despite his exhaustion. Fidgeting and pulling his collar up higher on his neck, he eased his foot down harder on the gas pedal as the sounds of the all-80's music hour on the radio struggled to be heard over the old engine doing some rumbling of its own as it struggled to accelerate. The gas light on the dash board suddenly pinged and lit up, making the man groan; he had pinned his hopes on getting all the way to Hill Valley on a quarter of a tank, and by God, he was going to give it his best shot.

Playing that game so particular to those trying vainly to conserve gas on the last leg of a journey, the man let up on the gas pedal and let the car cruise down a small hill before giving it another little burst of gas. Another crack of thunder and the accompanying lightening bathed the whole outside world in a bizarre light show complete with sound effects that did nothing for the man's nerves. His eyes strained in the darkness for the one thing that could make this nightmare of a drive end – a sign reading _Welcome to Hill Valley!_

Within minutes, such a sign did indeed greet his eyes and his shoulders instantly relaxed as he crossed into the city limits. Though he only lived an hour from Hill Valley, it had been well over a year, almost two, since he'd last coasted into the city that had expanded rapidly in the decade since he'd moved away.

The car was beginning to pull slightly as the nearly-empty gas tank began to make itself known. With a sigh, he pulled into a gas station that appeared on his right and climbed out of the car. The wind was blowing the rain sideways and even with the car to shield him, he was soaked in a matter of seconds. He pumped fifteen dollars that he couldn't really spare into the gas tank, clamored back into the car, and headed off towards his brother's house on the outskirts of Hill Valley.

The driveway, if it could really be called that, was merely a depression in the ground with a light scattering of pebbles barely discernible under the carpet of grass that was beginning to grow over it. He swung his SUV onto this pocket of sparse vegetation at the back of the house, snapped off the car lights, and shut off the ignition.

And then he just sat there.

The thunderstorm continued unabated as he studied the house in front of him. No lights were on inside, though that was hardly surprising – he was at least a day early, if not two. He hadn't settled on an exact day with his brother, as that wasn't really how it had ever worked between them, but he knew his brother wouldn't be expecting him to arrive in the middle of the night as a thunderstorm raged. A Cape Cod style home, the house had been built onto haphazardly over the years, creating a rambling, unmatched effect to the whole structure. It also desperately needed a new coat of paint and the garden in the back looked like it hadn't been touched by human hands in years; brambles, weeds and even a single, stray cornstalk stuck up unceremoniously in the untamed lawn. The man shook his head, marveling at his older brother's lack of awareness of such things. His brother held thirty-three patents, another nine pending, had engineered dozens of mechanical whats-its and doo-hickeys that were used in everything from car engines to toys, had collaborated with some of the brightest minds in physics, chemistry and engineering - and yet he couldn't keep his damn yard clear.

_I might not understand a tenth of what the guy does with science, but I __do__ know how to mow a yard, _the man thought to himself with some satisfaction as he jumped out of the car, grabbed just one of the several duffel bags out of the backseat, and hightailed it up to the back entrance where a makeshift awning created with two pieces of plywood and old ceiling fan blades hung over the door. He hadn't brought a key, somehow hoping against hope his brother would still be awake by the time he arrived, but dug across the top of the door frame until he felt a little metal object fall into his hand. Smiling with the satisfaction that comes from still knowing every inch of one's home even after a lapse of several years, he stuck the key in the door, turned the knob, entered to a darkened interior, threw his bag in the entry hall, called, "Jules, I'm here!" and promptly stepped into one of Jules Brown's _unpatented _creations – a homemade home security system.

Verne Brown wished he could say it was the first time such a thing had happened.

Two metal bands appeared to shoot out of the floor and ensnare his ankles while the same section of flooring, seemingly defying the laws of gravity itself, shot up and flipped, propelling Verne into a mid-air flip worthy of an Olympian. A girlish shriek, the one he always _swore _had never happened before, erupted from him. The square-shaped section of floorboard then leveled out beneath him a good five feet in the air, which he crashed down onto face first. Then, what could only be described as a cage-shaped square of steel crossed fencing descended from the ceiling and enclosed him. He moaned and flinched as the hallway lights suddenly flipped on and he was face-to-face with the muzzle of a rusty old revolver.

"That thing hasn't fired in thirty years and you know it, Jules," he grumbled tiredly, patting his lip with the back of his hand to check for blood. He didn't even need to look down to see who it was.

The gun disappeared from his view. "No matter. I knew it was you as soon as I heard that shrill yawp of yours echo through the house, Verne."

Verne pursed his lips and languidly rolled over onto his back inside the cage. "I haven't done that in years. This idiotic booby trapped of yours just spooked me, that's all."

"Naturally. And _sus scrofa domesticus _will achieve flight."

"Are you going to let me out of here? Or are we going to start a zoo and charge people to come see me?" Verne flipped back onto his belly, shot an annoyed look down at his brother Jules below him, and arched an eyebrow. "Because if you do, I want a cut of the profits."

With a staid simper of his own, Jules keyed in a code to a pad on the wall. The fenced cage enclosing Verne retracted back up into the ceiling and the section of flooring descended back into its rightful place, albeit far too quickly – with another yelp, Verne crashed to the floor in a heap.

"I bet you think this is funny," he murmured.

"I have seen less amusing spectacles in my time, I suppose." Jules held out a hand to help Verne, who took it gratefully and pulled himself into a standing position. "Although possible speculation as to why you chose to conduct your commute at both this time of night and in the current weather, the mind cannot fathom. Had I know your arrival was imminent, I would have disabled the security system."

Verne, clutching his back, gave Jules a long, slightly bemused look. "I bet ladies line up around the block to hear that vocabulary, Jules," he said flatly.

The dark haired man blushed slightly and set their father's old revolver on a table near the back door, which he then proceeded to lock. He turned back to Jules and gave him a small smile. "Notwithstanding your usual sarcasm, Verne, it _is _good to see you again."

The brothers embraced in the hallway, patted each other on the back and then headed into the living room. Verne noticed that Jules' normal crew-cut hairstyle that he'd had since he was a teenager had been replaced by a shaggy, unkempt style that nearly reached his ears. He had just opened his mouth to ask when Jules flipped on the lights and Verne found himself standing in the middle of the room, soaking it all in as the memories flooded back. The mismatched furniture, a product of their parents' weekly rounds of local garage sales looking for good deals, still stood in exactly the same spots where they'd left them. He noticed the family pictures still adorning the wall, showing shared memories of a happy family made up of two loving parents, two precocious-looking little boys, and even a young brown-haired man smiling in a few of them. He smiled. "You haven't changed a thing, Jules."

"The house has always been arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I see no reason to change it."

"It's been too long since I've been back in Hill Valley. Just wish it was under better circumstances," Verne said, muttering the last part as he flopped down onto the floral print couch and put his hands behind his head, sprawling comfortably on the old sofa. Verne's muddy tennis shoes, coated from the soggy ground outside, dribbled a little onto the carpet, causing Jules to scoff quietly and wrap his dressing gown around himself more tightly.

"Am I to assume another fight hastened your early arrival?" Jules asked pointedly, grabbing a roll of paper towels that he left in every room in the house. He knelt under his brother's feet and began to gingerly blot the muddy spot with the paper towel until he noticed Verne's silence; looking up, he saw a slightly pained look in Verne's faraway expression. Jules sighed. "I apologize, Verne. I did not mean to sound so abrupt."

Verne finally glanced at him and gave him a fleeting, defeated smile. "'S ok, Jules. Family has to be honest with each other, right?" he enjoined in a disheartened voice as he swallowed back a lump rising in his throat.

Seeing his brother's rapidly fading countenance, Jules shifted slightly and managed a small shrug, somewhat at a loss for words. "Yes. Yes, absolutely. Father always believed that we should be open and honest in our familial relations, as it creates cohesiveness and harmony – "

Verne waved the words away tiredly. "Forget it, forget it. I should have told you long before it came to this."

Getting up and brushing himself off, Jules deftly crumpled up the paper towel and threw it in a corner trash bin. "To be honest, I was quite surprised to hear that you and Margo were experiencing marital discord."

Verne slipped off his shoes and left them sole up on the carpet, to keep them from dripping more. "It didn't happen overnight, but it didn't happen at a snail's pace either." It was Verne's turn to heave a sigh. "Neither of us really saw it coming. It just…happened."

Jules smiled brightly and clapped his brother on the shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "You are, of course, welcome to stay with me as long as you like. I am certain that Mother and Father would have wanted this house to always be a home for you should the need arise."

Verne gave him a half-smile. "Thanks, Jules."

"Can I prepare something for your nourishment? I could manage some coffee and a sandwich if you're so inclined."

Minutes later, Verne sat at the kitchen table wolfing down a lunch meat sandwich as Jules absent-mindedly brushed crumbs away as they fell from the sandwich. "What's this I read about some lawsuit you filed against a toymaker?" Verne asked with his mouth full.

A scowl etched itself on Jules' features in response to the question. "Their insidious attempts to use my patented mechanism for urinary expulsion – which could have _revolutionized _the lives of those who have bladder retention problems, by the by – have created a _mockery _of serious advancements in biomedical technology in using my mechanism to create what can only be described as the unholy alliance of cutting-edge urology research…and _dollies_."

A bit of ham dangled from the side of Verne's mouth as he tried to decide whether his brother would ever forgive him for bursting into peals of laughter. He decided against it and settled on shaking his head gravely. "Shame on them," he said in a steely voice.

"Exactly!" Jules burst, glad that someone else saw his point of view.

Verne pounded a fist on the table. "Shame on them for creating a doll who pisses herself at timed intervals using a tube delivery system that Jules Brown invented!"

Verne began to hoot with laughter and the scowl on Jules' face deepened. "I see _nothing _humorous about the misappropriation of technology!" Jules barked, crossing his arms in front of himself.

"Misappro – Jules, for Christ's sake, they _paid _you for it, right? At least it's _legal _to use in dolls! You told me yourself that your device was never cleared by the FDA for human use."

"True, the clinical trials didn't go quite as I'd planned, but I have _great hopes – _"

" – _Great hopes? _For crying out loud Jules, the thing disintegrated inside of people and was no use at all! At least in a _doll _you don't have to worry about ammonia – "

"_Ammonia!_ Don't talk to me about _ammonia!" _Jules cried, throwing his hands in the air and standing up.

Verne burst into another fit of laughter. "You could have been Dad there, Jules."

Jules, now leaning over the kitchen sink with both hands on the counter to steady him, seemed to deflate somehow, his shoulders sinking slightly and his fingertips pressing hard on the countertop. Verne swallowed quickly and tried to think of a sincere-sounding apology.

"I didn't mean – it was a compliment, Jules." When his brother didn't answer, Verne got up and patted his brother comfortingly on the back. "I know you miss him. We all do. You, me, Marty..."

"I was not offended by your comparison," Jules assured him in a quiet voice. "But I fear my coping mechanisms are not as robust as yours and Marty's are."

Verne rubbed the back of his neck absently. "Dad would be real proud of you, Jules. So would Mom. And look, any invention you make that's actually useful to someone, somewhere – that's something, isn't it? You've done great."

Jules was silent and still for a moment. "There's a difference between earning an honest living through your work and achieving greatness, Verne. A vast difference."

"You know what I mean. Your gadgets are used all over the world, for all different kinds of - "

"The vast majority of my successful engineering patents have been used for products for which they were not originally intended," Jules interrupted. "I agree that it is perhaps far from the _worst _case scenario, but I refuse to believe that my inventions are only useful to toy companies and novelty item manufacturers." In the dim light from above the kitchen sink, Jules' face looked far older than his thirty five years.

Verne grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and leaned against the counter. "Don't be so hard on yourself. Dad went for most of his life before he invented something that even _worked, _right? Your stuff _works; _just not always how you envisioned them working."

"Father may have gone for more than half of his life without a successful invention, but the inventions that _were _successful were both the very apex of human ingenuity and great assets to understanding our common humanity. It is not so odd that the offspring of such a man would wish to carry on that legacy."

"I guess not," Verne conceded with his mouth full.

"Not only that, but our own childhood was absolutely unique in terms of normal childhood social development," Jules continued, picking up a sponge and beginning to half-heartedly clean the sink; a vestige of their father's habit, and the philosophy that hands should always be engaged in improving something – even a dirty kitchen sink. "If you take time to ponder upon it, we spent much of our lives not belonging to any particular place or time. You and I went to schools all over the world, in many different epochs, under many different forms of government, religion, and social philosophy. Except for our later schooling here in Hill Valley, all of the rest of our classmates are and have been dead for hundreds, some thousands, of years. We watched Aristotle expound on the philosophy of Plato in ancient Athens, we once listened to Benjamin Franklin speak of his hopes for a young America, and from the air we witnessed the Battle of Hastings in eleventh century England."

"As I remember it, the only reason we stayed long enough to see it was because Dad fell asleep before we could hightail it outta there," Verne recalled in a bored tone.

"In any event, you and I have been exposed to history in such a manner that is hardly universal. Most humans experience their history linearly, confined to only their life span, and their knowledge of past events is relayed through books, relics and archaeology, sometimes incorrectly or through the bias of history's victors. They did not experience that history first hand. We did. Through Father's invention of the time train, we have become the only human beings still living – besides Martin and Jennifer, of course – who have witnessed key events and people who have shaped human history down through the ages."

"Jules, not that I don't appreciate long, rambling speeches on things I already know, but is there a point to all of this?" Verne asked, dribbling a bit of apple from the side of his mouth.

Jules threw him a slightly annoyed glance and shoved a napkin at him before continuing, "The point is, Verne, I have absolutely no excuse _not _to create things eminently beneficial to humanity. We have seen far more of it than most people, and thus should be able to grasp the implications of repeated mistakes throughout history and their impact on our world today. If one knows what humanity's timeless needs are, should one not be able to correct them, especially if one is knowledgeable of the sciences through which such breakthroughs are entirely possible?"

"All I know is that even _with _all of that, I ended up as a high school history teacher in suburbia, and I feel fine about my place in the cosmos." Verne plopped down in a kitchen chair. "So we had a weird childhood. _Everyone _does. It doesn't mean you have to take the entire fate of humanity onto your shoulders. It isn't your responsibility to cure all the ills of the world, and that if you fail, no one else could possibly do it. Mom always told us that humanity is a collective endeavor, remember? That it's more of an idea than a reality, and ideas can sometimes be _stronger _than reality, and that the only human constant in the universe is that we're all in this together whether we like it or not. So relax. It's too damn late for big philosophical monologues, anyway."

Jules threw the sponge back into the sink. "Very well. I haven't yet made up a guest room for you, seeing as how I did not expect you for another two days, but the linen cabinet is stocked - "

"Nah, forget it. I'm too tired to make a bed. I'll just sleep in the basement in my old sleeping bag," Verne said as he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder.

"No!" Jules cried in a tone that startled Verne, who gave him a bewildered look.

"Why the hell not? My room was down there when I was a teenager. I think I have _some _claim to it," Verne said. "Why, what have you done to it?"

"Nothing! It's – it's just that I'm running a very sensitive experiment down there at the moment, and – "

"Oh, bull!" Verne waved his brother away as he stalked towards the basement door. "The basement is _huge. _Surely there's enough room to spread a sleeping bag out for one night. It'll be fun sleeping in my old space. Really, I don't mind – "

"No, wait!" Jules cried again, throwing himself up against the basement door. "You cannot go down there."

"Don't tell me," Verne said, letting the bag slip off his shoulder. "You turned the basement into the flight deck of the _Enterprise _again, didn't you?"

"Of course not!" Jules said indignantly. "I haven't done that since high school."

"Jedi training obstacle course?"

"I promised Mother I wouldn't."

"Then it's that weird alien plant nursery you had for a while, right? With that one plant that ate my gerbil?"

"Just because _heliamphora chimantensis _is not indigenous to this hemisphere does not mean it is of extra-terrestrial origin. And I apologized about Twitchy at the time," Jules answered stiffly. "I was merely testing the olfactory responses of the plant - "

"Look, forget it," Verne said tiredly, grabbing the doorknob to the basement door. "I just want to - "

_"Stop!" _Jules burst, once again throwing himself between the basement door and his brother. The steely look in his eye was unusual for the older brother, and Verne took a step back with a quizzical look on his face. Jules struggled to maintain a calm demeanour. "I told you, it's a very sensitive experiment. The environmental controls are calibrated to precise specifications, and should any fluctuation occur – "

"Look man, I'm not going to mess with your little science project. I just want to get some sleep, all right?" Verne said, exasperated, as he once more grasped the doorknob. Upon turning it, he realized it was locked tight. He turned back to Jules. "This door never had a lock on it before."

Jules exhaled slowly, not looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry, Verne, but it is a necessary precaution. I am unable to explicate the purpose of this experiment, nor can I elaborate upon the equipment being used. I am afraid you will simply have to place your faith in me without proof of non-nefarious proceedings. In layman's terms, brother, you will have to trust me."

Verne studied Jules' face carefully for a moment. "Jules, I don't know what's down there, but I do know that you've never kept anything from me before," he conceded in a slightly hurt voice. He shrugged the handle of his duffel bag back over his shoulder and headed for the stairs, throwing one last glance at his brother. "Whatever it is, I hope it's worth it."

Jules leaned back against the basement door with a _thump, _exhausted from the exchange. "I hope so too," he whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

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><p>Chapter 2 - A Short Trip<p>

**June 27th, 1998**  
><strong>8:02am<strong>

He knew something was amiss when he heard the _thump. _

It wasn't your normal type of _thump - _the kind that could indicate anything from the house settling to someone dropping a book down the stairs - but rather that special sort of _thump _that sends the parents of small children into a flying leap out of bed, instantaneously wide awake and frantic until all offspring are deemed to be safe. Marty shot out of bed and down the steps in what had to be a land speed record for the groggy father, racing to where the sound had come from.

"Jimmy? Robin?" he called in a hoarse voice born of the early hour and a rude awakening, desperately throwing glances into rooms empty but for boxes, looking for any sign of either of his children. A moment later, he exhaled loudly in relief upon catching sight of Jimmy, seven years old and every inch a daredevil, looking back up at him from the living room floor like a deer in the headlights.

"Are you all right?" Marty gasped, slightly winded.

Jimmy nodded wordlessly and raced out of the room without offering an explanation for the noise that had sent Marty bolting down the steps, but Marty's gaze soon landed on his old Hoverboard, a relic of the near future, laying against the wall where a smattering of paint and plaster graced its edges. A small hole, about the same shape and size as a corner of the Hoverboard, was plainly visible on the wall behind it. Marty ran an exasperated hand through his hair and marched to the kitchen, where he found Jimmy giving him his best innocent fawn eyes as the small boy poured himself a bowl of cereal.

"How many times do I have to _tell _you, Jimmy?" Marty scolded crossly. "Stay _offa _the Hoverboard! You could really hurt yourself on that thing!"

"No I won't!" Jimmy shot back instantly. He crossed his arms obstinately across his Superman pajama shirt. "I _know _how to ride it!"

"Really? Then what's that hole doing in the wall of the house we're moving out of in less than a _week?" _Marty demanded sternly. "Geez, Jimmy, as if I needed _another _thing to fix before we leave!"

"Sorry, Dad," Jimmy said softly, chastened. He played with the spoon in his cereal, not looking his father in the eye. "I jus' wanted to ride it."

A note of guilt crept into Marty's expression for snapping at the boy; the past couple of weeks had been so stressful that his ire riled to the surface for even the most commonplace of infractions. "I just don't want you to get hurt, that's all," he offered in the way of an apology. "Tell you what, tonight after dinner, we'll ride the Hoverboard in the backyard, how's that?"

The concession had the desired effect as Jimmy's face lit up. "Can I ride it by myself without you holding it?"

Marty seemed to wrestle with a decision for a moment before caving under the weight of the buoyant smile on Jimmy's face, and gave him a smile of his own. "You're old enough to start learning, I guess."

Jimmy's grin grew wider, and Marty stalked out of the kitchen and back towards the living room, side-stepping the boxes and unused gallons of paint lining the hallway. The kids loved the Hoverboard - loved riding it, loved putting their hamsters on it and giving it a good shove down the hall, and seemed to love bonking it into walls, teetery tables, and each other. He scooped up the hot pink board and shoved it into an open box. There were some days he almost wished Doc hadn't given it back to him after the Brown family returned to the future in 1991, but he also thought that one Hoverboard was worth more than a hundred dollys when it came to moving. However, like everything else, little hands could never stay off of it for long.

He collapsed on the couch and ran his hands through his hair several times, trying in vain to wake himself up. The last two weeks had been a blur of boxes, paint and paperwork. Having finally come to the point in their lives when they felt they could manage it financially, Marty and Jennifer had decided it was time to become homeowners, and had found a cheerful bungalow on the north side of Hill Valley priced to sell. Somewhat impulsively, they'd made a bid the same day and were surprised when it was accepted - and even more surprised when they learned the owners wanted a close date only two weeks away. Suddenly, they had two weeks to pack of all of their worldly possessions and get out of the house they'd rented since moving out of their small apartment shortly before their daughter was born.

Fortunately for Marty, it was summertime and as a teacher, he at least had enough time to do all the things one does when moving - patch jobs here, paint a room there, scrounge empty boxes from grocery stores, things of that nature. But their checking account was hurting pretty badly - home repairs and closing costs weren't cheap.

Both he and Jennifer were exhausted. It had all happened so fast that Marty hadn't even really had much time to think about it. The thought of a mortgage had always terrified Marty, and it wasn't until he and Jennifer had started talking about how nice it would be to have their _own _house away from psychotic landlords that he considered straddling himself with that much debt to be a feasible proposition.

Or maybe not. He didn't know. God, he was tired.

Within a few minutes, Jennifer and four year old Robin traipsed down the stairs and breakfast began in earnest. As Marty munched his corn flakes and slathered some butter on his bread, he said, "I need to run over to Doc's, Jen. I need to borrow a sander."

"What about ours?" Jennifer answered, hair tousled from a sleep that was far too short for the level of exhaustion she felt.

With a smirk, Marty gestured to the moutain of boxes crowning their front room. "Care to go digging?" he asked playfully.

Jennifer scoffed. "Can't _believe _we packed that already," she muttered.

"Didn't think we'd need it," Marty said, throwing a look across the table to Jimmy. "But our walls didn't make it through the morning quite intact. Need a sander to smooth the dent before I can spackle it."

"Well, just make it quick." Jennifer watched as Marty rose from the table, mouth still full, and took his bowl to the sink. "We've got a lot to do today."

"You're tellin' me," Marty agreed, planting a kiss on his wife's forehead and doing the same for each of the kids as he grabbed his car keys. "Won't be an hour."

"It's _always _an hour with Doc Brown," Jennifer muttered with a smile, rolling her eyes as Marty closed the door behind him.

As Marty pulled into the Browns' driveway five minutes later, he couldn't help but still marvel slightly at the fact that he could visit Doc whenever he wanted to, as opposed to just a few short years ago, when he had assumed - reluctantly - that 1985 was the last time he'd ever see his old friend, waving gooodbye from the time train with scattered pieces of the DeLorean laying all around them. Marty had been a little quieter and more lost in his thoughts than usual in the days and weeks that followed after that final encounter. Once or twice, he'd even gotten on his skateboard and was halfway to Doc's garage before he remembered that Doc didn't live there anymore. He'd sometimes head on anyway, and look longingly through the small windows of the garage, as though Doc would round the corner at any second, hand him a few bucks and ask him to pick up a couple of cheeseburgers at the Burger King next door, as Doc always had a notion that fast food cheeseburgers were good fuel for the scientific mind (although Marty suspected it had more to do with the fact that they were cheap, accessible, and didn't have to be prepared).

Marty wasn't sure how it had happened, who had done it, or even under whose _direction _it was done, but almost all of Doc Brown's belongings had been moved out by the time Marty visited the garage again in 1985. After stealthily picking the lock and forcing his way in (figuring that Doc would have understood), Marty found that the only items left behind were a few of Doc's clocks and Einstein's old food bowl tucked under a work bench. Marty had given the food bowl to a neighbor kid who needed something to hold the small turtles she'd caught in her backyard (all of whom she named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and kept the clocks for himself in a box under his bed. As time passed, the urban legends surrounding the 'mad scientist' Doc Brown began to dissipate until Marty didn't hear them anymore, and that, at least, was a relief.

1991 had found Marty and Jennifer as recent college graduates and soon-to-be parents. One morning, Marty had been alone in he and Jen's newly-rented apartment, painting a wall in an old t-shirt and some beat-up jeans when there was a knock on the door. Confused as to who might even know they lived there - they had only moved in a few days previous - Marty had wiped some paint from his hands and threw open the door. Anyone could have knocked him over with a feather when he caught sight of the face across the threshold. Doc Brown handed him a six-pack of beer, smiled, and asked if he needed any help painting. It was a good five minutes before Marty was even able to put together a coherent sentence.

But he couldn't deny how good it was to see his friend again.

The paint work forgotten, Doc and Marty spent close to two hours perched on a box packed full of plates and silverware sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty living room of the apartment, slowly working their way through the six pack, bringing each other up to speed on their respective lives. Marty felt strangely touched to learn that after taking a day or two to secure essentials like a house and a school for the boys, the very next thing Doc had done after getting back to Hill Valley was to track down Marty. Doc was astonished to learn that Marty had taken a part-time music teaching job at Hill Valley High School, and entirely unsurprised to learn that Marty had taken another part time job at a small record company in Hill Valley propitiously named Rock Future Records. Soon after, the tradition of Sunday dinners at the Browns' house was born, with Marty, Jen, and eventually their children joining them at the dinner table.

Of course, the tradition of borrowing things from Doc continued unabated from that point on as well. Hardware stores be damned; Doc Brown's laboratory and garage were better stocked than any shop, and Marty was more or less at liberty to borrow what he pleased - and that he did.

Marty only realized that he was still clad in the sweatpants and dirty t-shirt he'd worn to bed once he was out of the car in Doc's driveway. He made a sound of irritation as he began to frantically paw at his shirt and pants, hoping to dislodge at least a few crumbs leftover from breakfast, before realizing that his appearance wouldn't matter to much to anyone at the Brown residence. Doc's house was like a second home to him, and in fact _had _been his temporary home a few times when he'd agree to devote a weekend here or there to helping Doc with particularly lengthy and intricate round-the-clock experiments. Sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt weren't anything to make a fuss over.

He walked through the backyard to find Verne, a stocky sixteen year old, reading a book in the hammock Marty had bought them two Christmases ago.

"Hey Verne," Marty greeted him as he passed. "Got that music theory homework done for me yet?"

"Eh...no, _Mr. _McFly," Verne returned with a half-hearted grin, clasping the book to his chest. "But I'm working real hard on it."

"Sure you are." Marty snatched the book from Verne and let the dirty magazine that was hiding inside fall to the ground. With a short laugh, he tossed the book back to Verne. "Oldest trick in the book, kid. We were doing that even in _my _day."

"Just don't tell Mom and Dad!" Verne hissed to him with wide eyes.

"No worries, Verney," Marty said with a smile as Verne winced at the nickname he'd made Marty _swear _to never use in the classroom. Marty sauntered over to the large garage, where Doc had set up his laboratory shortly after moving in, feeling that a functioning laboratory was _infinitely _more important to get up and running immediately than, say, the living room which had remained almost empty for nearly a month before he got around to unpacking boxes, and even then only after repeated stern admonishments from Clara. Upon opening the door, Marty found the man in question concentrating intently on a Petri dish in front of him. Marty stuck his hands in his pocket. "Mornin' Doc. Mind if I borrow your sander?"

Doc looked up from his work, a headset magnifier strapped to his crown, and promptly stood up. "Marty, thank God you're here!"

Marty grimaced inwardly; such a greeting always meant he'd be helping Doc with something or other, whether he had the time or not.

Doc grabbed two pipettes from his stock on the workbench and held them out to Marty. "Here, take these," he instructed. "I've got a formula that I've been working on all week, and I just need to add all the chemicals together to find out if it _works." _

Marty reluctantly took the pipettes and hung back, never quite sure of what he was being roped into when Doc started giving instructions. "Formula for what, Doc?"

"Oh, a _lot _of things!" Doc crowed, gathering various test tubes filled with strange-looking liquids and placing them on his work table. "Hemorrhoid relief, caulk fixative, a pleasant after dinner mint..."

"You mean you don't know yet?

"It's never stopped me before," Doc admitted bluntly. "Now, the _trick _of it is to add all of the chemicals at the same time. As I'm not endowed with four hands, I need someone to add two of the chemicals while I add the other two. Here, put some of the liquid from each of these tubes into your pipettes. There, good. All right, on three."

Marty held out a full pipette in each hand, hovering over the Petri dish in front of them, and flinched slightly in anticipation.

"Don't be such a pessimist, Marty!" Doc scolded, catching sight of Marty's expression. "On three. Ready? One...two..._three." _

Thirty seconds later saw Marty and Doc burst out the back door, sputtering and coughing as purple smoke billowed out after them.

"Well Doc," Marty croaked when his voice returned to him. "I can't see anybody thinking that would be a 'pleasant after dinner mint.'"

Doc pounded his chest and hacked deeply. "Must have miscalculated somewhere along the way," he pointed out needlessly.

Marty plopped down on the grass of the back lawn, waiting for the smoke to dissipate to the point where he'd be able to find the sander in the garage. Doc joined him with a heavy sigh.

"Well! There's three weeks worth of work up in smoke," Doc declared, throwing his arm over his knee, nonplussed by the mess behind them. "Sorry I had to include you in it, Marty - but with Jules off at college, my main assistant is gone! And for whatever reason, Clara and Verne _refuse _to participate in what _could _be important scientific experiments!"

Marty understood Clara and Verne's aversion to Doc's experiments all too well, but kept quiet on the subject. "You know what Edison said, Doc," he said. _"'I have not failed a thousand times, I have successfully found a thousand ways that do not work." _

"Exactly!" Doc burst, his wild hair standing in the breeze. He sighed in an adoring way that always meant he was in a philosophical mood. "I'd give _anything _to have met Edison, Marty. Just _once. _You know, out of all the places we've been and all the things we've done, I've never _once _run into the man. It's rather extraordinary when you think of it."

Marty picked at a bit of grass absent-mindedly. "Well, I have the feeling he's the type of guy you'd have to go _looking _for to meet," he replied in a distracted voice, idly wondering how long it would take for the smoke to clear out.

Doc grasped Marty's arm, his eyes wide and his face alight. "You're _right!" _

Marty began to feel uneasy as he recognized the expression on his friend's face. "Look, Doc, I just came to get - "

"I _haven't _ever looked for him. I've always _longed _to see his enormous factories in West Orange, New Jersey. It was a nursery for some of the _greatest _inventions known to mankind - "

"Doc, we can't - "

" - and the man _himself _a _genius _of the very highest order - "

" - I gotta get back and keep _packing - "_

" - and now that the morning has, essentially, been _ruined _by an unfortunate miscalculation - "

"Wait, we can't - "

" - and we have a _time machine _available to us, there isn't a reason in the world why we can't - "

_" - go meet Thomas Edison!" _Marty and Doc intoned at the same time, though for much different reasons. Marty scoffed quietly and got to his feet.

"Doc, any other day I might feel up for it, but I've got a lot to do, and - "

"Marty, you're not thinking fourth dimensionally!" Doc protested, also rising to his feet. Marty fought the urge to roll his eyes; it was one of Doc's favorite retorts. "We can come back to 1998 at almost the _precise _second we left - you won't lose any time at all!"

Marty hesitated and scratched the back of his head. "I don't know Doc, I - "

"Marty!" Doc chided, patting him on the shoulder. "How many times in life do you get a chance to travel back in time to meet _Thomas Edison?_ We'll be back as _soon _as we leave!"

Many times in those years before their second meeting in Marty's small apartment, Marty had wished fervently for just one more adventure with the Doc, one more ride in the time machine, hell, even one more greasy cheeseburger enjoyed in the old garage with him. As he stood on the lawn, smoke wafting around him, about to get roped into another adventure, he guessed that's why he always said yes whenever Doc asked him - he never knew when the Doc would up and disappear again, and this time around, he didn't want to have any regrets.

A smile finally broke free on Marty's face. "All right. You're the Doc, Doc."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Some of the more detail-oriented among you might notice that the days of the week are off for the year they represent – but it's fan fiction, so you know, whatevs.

* * *

><p><em>Chapter 3 – Welcome Home<em>

* * *

><p><strong>June 23rd, 2011<strong>**  
><strong>**8:13am**

Marty McFly always felt that Saturday mornings came _way _too soon.

Friday nights were reserved for practice with his band, or if they were particularly lucky, a gig somewhere. This had been the unspoken rule between he and his wife Jennifer since before they were married – he was hers every other night of the week, but barring a vacation or family commitment, Friday nights were for jamming with the band.

As a teenager, Marty had been certain that rock stardom was one demo tape away, but he'd enrolled at Hill Valley University because (he claimed) college bands were more respected, had a built in audience of other college students, were scouted more often by record executives, and besides, who _wouldn't_want a good excuse for their life to consist of shows, beer, and sleeping late for four years? In reality, he'd grudgingly decided to enroll for three important reasons: his parents wanted him to, he'd received a music scholarship, and most importantly, Jennifer was going. He'd known almost since their first date that she was the only woman he could ever see spending his life with, and though part of him had to admit it was an incredible feeling to have beautiful women throwing themselves at him during his shows, his heart, mind and body had always remained steadfastly loyal to his high school sweetheart.

Besides, the demo tape – the one he'd poured his heart and soul into – received nary a whisper of interest from any of the record companies to which he'd sent it. At the very least, college would give him four more years to live out the fantasy.

He'd chosen to study music, if for no other reason than it gave him unlimited access to the university's audio and recording equipment, and spent most of his time with Jennifer or in the band rooms of the university. Better yet, he received class credit for doing what he'd already been doing free for years – studying the music of other talented musicians, writing his own compositions, tutoring others for a little cash, and producing his own music. Before he knew it, graduation snuck up on him. He toyed with the idea of going out on the road, giving one last full-force, Hail Mary attempt to break into the major leagues of rock, but one big thing had made that unlikely, if not impossible.

Actually, it was one really _little _thing.

Jennifer had pulled him aside two days before graduation, and with a mixture of absolute terror and unbridled joy, whispered to him that she was pregnant. The world seemed to tilt off its axis for a moment as he collapsed onto a bench near the science building, his head suddenly flooded with a cocktail of emotions. Graduation day was one long haze of faces, names, and congratulations on receiving his degree, but the only thing he could think of was that he and Jennifer were suddenly responsible for a hell of a lot more than just showing up to commencement on time.

Both of them had known instantly that they wanted to keep the baby. There was no doubt in their minds that a family had always been in their future – they just hadn't expected it quite so soon. Jennifer, who had studied microbiology and had dreamed of graduate school, was no less torn than Marty on their sudden plummet into familyhood, but the day after commencement they walked to the spot near the railroad tracks where the DeLorean had been destroyed five years earlier, sat on the gray rocks surrounding the tracks, and talked for close to three hours. The glimpse into their future in 2015 had been deeply jarring to both of them, and they made a solemn promise right there to do everything in their power to prevent it from happening. No matter what, family and dreams did not have to be mutually exclusive.

It's just that their dreams had to undergo some minor adjustments.

Hill Valley High School had, by that time, entered the twentieth century and built a music department worthy of the growing city of Hill Valley. Shortly after he and Jennifer's small wedding in the basement of the court house, Marty accepted a job as a part-time music teacher, where he was mainly responsible for lessons and for student-made music recordings, and took another part-time job at a small recording studio on the outskirts of town. The thought of conducting the school band had seemed ludicrous to him, and thus he had managed to evade that particular responsibility, instead taking a more student-centric role, teaching a few classes on rock music history (his own creation and syllabus), helping kids taking their first tenuous steps towards learning to play instruments or grasping the basics of music composition, assisting more advanced students lay down their first tracks, and generally being a mentor to any kid with an interest and passion for music. He quickly became one of the most popular teachers at the school and within a few years was hired on full-time to accommodate the large number of students who specifically wanted his classes, his lessons, and just specifically _him. _

Through it all, Marty and Jennifer had kept their promise of not letting the bleak future of the original 2015 timeline come to fruition. They began by naming their first child - a boy - after Jennifer's father instead of after Marty. He'd decided that he didn't need a namesake (since he didn't feel finished making his own name anyway), and quickly came to the conclusion that James was a better name in any case. Any doubts he may have had about he and Jennifer's future had evaporated the first time he held the little boy in the delivery room. It was love at first sight for both of the proud parents. Still quite young and poor, the new parents were grateful when Doc and Clara gave them clothes and a crib leftover from Jules and Verne's younger days (although both Marty and Jennifer stoutly refused to clothe Jimmy in some of the stranger 19th century accurate clothing that the Brown boys had worn in the 1890's), and their parents always made sure diapers and formula were stocked in the cupboards whenever paychecks ran a little short. A girl, Robin, arrived three short years later.

Their days became a juggling act between Marty's duties at the school and recording studio, Jennifer's part-time graduate schooling, along with diapers, feedings, toys and late nights spent sleepily parading around the nursery with fussy babies.

Marty loved every minute of it.

It wasn't what he would have chosen for himself in high school, or even college. But in his reflective moments, looking around the dinner table and seeing Jennifer and two small, smiling faces looking back at him, he believed that all of the fame and fortune in the world couldn't compare with one minute of how his life had turned out. Priorities change, he'd decided, and that was ok. No one wanted at seventeen what they wanted at twenty-five.

When the recording studio where Marty worked a few hours a week was going out of business, it was Doc who had lent Marty enough money to purchase it and turn it into his own little rock and roll heaven, knowing that Marty needed music in his life as much as he needed Jennifer and the kids. Marty used the studio not only for his own work – he and a rotating group of musicians loosely allied as a "band" put out several independent albums, if only for their own pleasure – but also for some of the more talented kids at the high school, even if they weren't students of Marty's. He had found that the promise of studio time was an incredible motivator to a kid trying to decide if music was really worthwhile, and although the Rock Future Record Company never made much money, it earned its keep as a place where anyone could cut their own album. Downtrodden kids who had spent most of their lives feeling worthless and unimportant were suddenly rock stars when they got inside the sound booth, belting out their own stories and tunes into an old microphone, then getting to hear their songs played on local radio stations. Many lives had been turned around at Rock Future, and brought a few lost souls back from the brink. Music was redemption. That, in and of itself, made it a worthwhile endeavor for Marty.

But through all of that time, Friday nights were always for the band.

Marty groaned as a sunbeam hit him squarely in the forehead. At forty-three, his body was beginning to betray him with little aches and pains, made all the more pronounced on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night. Downstairs, he could hear Jennifer shuffling the pages of a newspaper and decided to pry himself out of bed. It was his solemn duty to procure doughnuts for them every Saturday morning as a kind of family ritual, and old habits die hard.

He pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, shaved and washed his face quickly, made his way downstairs, kissed Jennifer good morning, and grabbed his car keys. If he wasn't at the bakery by 9am, all of the good doughnuts would be gone. Over the years, he'd learned this the hard way from two cranky kids when they didn't get their promised jelly doughnut for Saturday morning breakfast.

The driveway, empty but for two cars, still struck Marty as strange. Jimmy – or James, as he wanted to be called now and which Marty could never remember – had bought his own car at age sixteen with the money he made by working the sound board at Rock Future for a few of the wealthier clients who wanted to fulfill a mid-life-crisis fueled fantasy of being a rock star, and from then on, the kid was rarely seen around. Popular and outgoing, Jimmy – James, rather – had enrolled at a university in Colorado three years previous to study music theory. A couple of years after that, Robin – the more studious and reserved child – was granted a full-ride science scholarship at a university in southern California, her love of science having been cultivated by summer afternoons hanging around in Doc Brown's lab while her father helped with experiments and the inevitable clean-ups that followed. Suddenly, the kids' rooms were empty, the house was quiet, no one demanded jelly doughnuts on Saturday morning and the driveway was never crowded. Marty missed the hell out of both of the kids.

He tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel as a good song came on the radio and decided to take the scenic route to the bakery, which would take him right by Doc and Clara's house. "Jules' house now," he corrected himself in a whisper. It still seemed unreal that Doc Brown and his wife Clara weren't in his life anymore, as he could barely remember a time before Doc, though he'd been fifteen before he'd even met him, after responding to a classified ad for a lab assistant put in the paper by the scientist. Being a lab assistant seemed better than working at Burger King with his brother, or at the mall with his sister. He'd been hired on the spot after Doc noticed Marty didn't so much as flinch when a small condenser exploded in the corner of the lab. Marty couldn't even imagine what his life would have been without the Doc.

Marty missed the hell out of him, too.

He slowed down a little as he rounded the corner towards the Brown house and noticed a green SUV sitting in what was once a driveway before it was overtaken by weeds. He immediately recognized it as Verne's car and smiled a little. He hadn't seen Verne in quite a while, and wondered what he was doing in town. He decided he would drop in later that morning, always looking for a good excuse to look in on Jules. He had always felt a little bit responsible for Jules and Verne; he had never had any little brothers of his own, and considered the Brown boys the closest he would ever get.

Doughnuts bought and consumed at the breakfast table, house vacuumed and lawnmower repaired, Marty was out the door and driving back towards the Brown house by noon. He carried along with him a few sandwiches he'd thrown together and some ice cold sodas from the fridge. Jules never had much, if anything, in the house and Marty knew there were some days that the older brother simply didn't eat, as if food was too much trouble unless it was simply handed to him pre-made, a habit inherited from his late father. However, Verne had always possessed a ravenous appetite and would appreciate the sandwiches.

He pulled in next to Verne's car, trotted up the back steps, throwing a contemptuous glance at the ever-messy yard ("Looks like wild animals live here," he muttered to himself), and knocked on the back door. Marty had a key to the house and always had, but he could never tell if that terrifying "home-made security system" was up and running, and thus always waited to be let in.

An unshaven, grizzled looking blond-haired man in a bathrobe threw open the door with a gruff "Whaaat?" Once he caught sight of Marty, his face lit up in a grin.

"Marty!" Verne bellowed, grabbing Marty and wrapping him in a bear hug. Verne was easily a head taller and seventy pounds heavier than Marty, and his vice grip was enough to make a grown man wince.

"Verne! Good to see ya, man! I brought lunch!" Marty said, holding up the plastic bag full of sandwiches and Cokes. He could practically see Verne begin to drool.

"Thank God! Jules doesn't keep enough food in this place to feed a mouse. Come in, come in!" he said, ushering Marty through the back door and into the kitchen. A loud banging echoed through the house, making the floors shake. Verne rolled his eyes.

"He's been at it since five-thirty this morning. Refuses to tell me what he's working on. I'd forgotten that _he_was the reason I never brought dates home. Here, have a seat," Verne urged, pulling out a chair from the table. He then marched across the kitchen to the basement door, where he cupped his hands and shouted, "Jules, get your ornery butt up here! Marty's here!" The banging stopped a moment later and footsteps could be heard on the basement stairs. The basement door opened and a tired face greeted Marty with a smile.

"Martin, it is pleasant surprise to see you," Jules said as he dusted his one-piece dark blue work jumpsuit fastidiously with a brush kept on the wall. Verne noticed the dark circles under Jules' eyes and gave him a flat look.

"Late night on the deck of the _Enterprise_, Jules?"

Marty caught the sardonic glances the brothers gave one another and clapped his hands once to break the tension. "Well, Verne! What brings you back to Hill Valley?"

"Marital discord," Jules whispered to Marty conspiratorially, as though they were the only two in the room.

Verne scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. "He asked _me_, lame brain."

"And I answered it directly rather than have you take twenty minutes of our lives beating around the proverbial bush to arrive at the same answer that I just gave him."

"This from a guy who can turn a sentence into a paragraph. You know, if common courtesy were gasoline, you wouldn't have enough to drive around the inside of a Cheerio," Verne snapped, a strand of blond hair falling across his eye.

Jules scoffed, also crossing his arms in front of himself, his dirty hands making smudges on his jumpsuit. "At least one celled organisms wouldn't outscore me on an IQ test."

"Jesus, you guys, you're grown men. Cool it. Here, eat these," Marty said, stifling a laugh as he tossed each brother a sandwich. Hearing them squabble made it seem as if no time had passed since they'd been kids chasing each other around the yard threatening bodily harm for some perceived slight. Marty sat down, and the brothers did the same. "All right Verne, spill it. 'Martial discord'? Is that true?"

Verne bit into a sandwich angrily, giving a short nod. "More than that, I guess. I'm getting a divorce," he proclaimed with his mouth half full.

Both Jules and Marty stared at him with shocked expressions. Jules was the first to find his voice. "Verne, I know that you had been having issues with your wife, but you did not inform me – "

"I know, I know. Look, the reason I came early – Jesus, how do I explain it…well, look." Verne sighed and pulled his chair more closely to the table, putting down his sandwich. His voice was considerably shakier than he would have wished it. "I've been staying at a hotel for the past two weeks. I got up yesterday morning at the same time I always do. Had my morning cup of coffee, like always. Took a shower. Got dressed. Ran a few errands. Came back, turned on the game, opened a beer. Then there was a knock on the door. Some man I didn't recognize was standing there trying to hand me a bunch of papers. They were divorce papers. I was served divorce papers yesterday." Verne put his face in his hands. "She doesn't want to talk about it anymore. No more trying to work through it. It's over. That's why I left. I couldn't be in that room where I'd just been handed the end of my marriage, Jules. I…I couldn't do it."

All three were silent for a moment. Jules' face took on its familiar worried pattern as he let the words sink in. "Verne, I apologize for being so didactic. I did not realize – "

"Look, it's all right. It's ok." Verne's voice quavered as he spoke. "It's…it's fine. We've been having problems for a few years now. We just…we just got married too young. We aren't the same people as we were when we got hitched. We don't agree on much anymore – not on politics, or beliefs, or money, or hell, even what to have for _dinner_. Everything is an argument. Every day is a struggle and has been for a long time. Maybe it's for the best, you know?" he said hopefully, though his voice betrayed the fact that he didn't believe it himself. "Maybe we'll look back on it as the best decision we ever – that we ever – ever – "

Verne was not a small man and never had been. Though Jules had grown into a relatively slim individual with a quiet, tempered voice, every part of Verne screamed of a big personality, from his boisterous voice and his shock of blond hair that refused to be tamed, to his large feet, strong hands and infectious smile. But as he sat in the kitchen surrounded by the reality of being separated from his own family since its inception, an unrestrained sob escaped him and he sank face-first onto the surface of the table.

Instinctively, Marty scooted his chair next to Verne's and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "I'm sorry, big guy," was all Marty could find to say. Jules sat motionless, shocked at both Verne's news and his tears. Jules couldn't remember the last time his younger brother had cried; it was a strange sensation that left him unable to readily find words.

"We tried Marty, we really did."

"I'm sure you did, Verney."

"I thought I'd have a little more time, that we could try a few more counseling sessions, maybe take a little trip to try and work things out…" He sniffed and wiped his nose with a napkin. "We didn't really want this, you know. We didn't. We didn't want the kids to grow up in two separate homes. We loved each other."

The three were quiet for close to a minute, their silence only broken by the rhythmic ticking of dozens of clocks in the living room and the faraway drone of motors it on the new highway which looped around Hill Valley. "I am sorry that it came to that, Verne. Having never been married, I cannot pretend to know how it feels. But I imagine that it is…quite painful," Jules said gently, hoping that it was the correct thing to say. "And I believe it bears repeating that you are welcome to stay with me as long as you please." He folded his hands on the table, looking at Verne carefully for any sort of a reaction. "I might also add that although I am uncertain as to your future plans, I am sure that Martin could find you a position at Hill Valley High School should you choose to make this move permanent."

"Sure. Of course. Hill Valley always needs history teachers," Marty said quickly, almost a little too quickly.

Jules seized on Marty's assurances. "Yes. Naturally. With the rapid population increase of this area, the schools have been on somewhat of a hiring spree, contrary to what is happening in most California school systems. Not to say that Center City is not a perfectly acceptable place to make one's homestead, of course, but should one want to physically distance oneself from certain former spouses, then Hill Valley might make an exemplary new home."

"The problem is the kids, guys." Verne leaned back in his chair. "I can't be an hour away from them. Sunny's only two. Two! And Jake needs me; he's a worrywart, like his uncle. Gets himself all wound up and anxious over everything. The divorce won't help anything in _that _respect. And Alex – well, who would take Alex to baseball games if not me, hm? Or take him to get ice cream on Saturday afternoons, or help him put his robots together?" With this, Verne's lower lip began quivering again.

Marty put his hand on Verne's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. "Divorce doesn't mean you're going to be any less of a dad, Verne. And you're a great dad. Those kids are crazy about you. I've seen it."

His face contorted in pain once more. "I hate being away from them. It's like part of my heart is missing when I'm not with them."

Marty tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been away from his own children when they still as young as Verne's, and his heart hurt for him. "It'll all turn out all right," he said reassuringly, patting him on the back. "You've got me and Jules, and you know we're behind you every step of the way."

"Yes," Jules piped up. "And we're – "

Jules' sentiment, whatever it was, was lost to time; before he could finish his thought a tremendous explosion wracked the entire house with such force that all three of them immediately blacked out.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4 - 1911_

* * *

><p><em><strong>June 27th, 1998<strong>_  
><em><strong>9:01am<strong>_

The smoke from the lab took its time in dissipating, and it was a full twenty minutes before Doc and Marty were able to re-enter the laboratory without coughing after Doc's experiment had gone awry. Doc was the first to enter, quickly discarding the ill-fated materials still steaming slightly on the work table and waving Marty back in, who stood on the threshold wearing a slightly dubious expression.

"You know Doc," he started, stepping back into the lab. "I don't think we're just going to be able to walk up to the front desk, tell Edison's secretary we're time travelers from 1998, and expect anything other than a police escort out of the building." He pulled a stool out from under the work desk and sat down. "I don't know about you, but I can think of better ways to spend a sunny afternoon than sitting in an early 20th century jailhouse."

Doc had pulled a thick, worn book down off the rickety bookshelf standing at the back of the lab, and had already begun thumbing through it with a look of stern concentration adorning his face. "The way to an inventor's laboratory is always through the offer of something new that might be of _critical_ importance to that inventor's work, some piece of information or material that could prove beneficial." He stopped his frantic page turning for a moment and looked thoughtful. "I suppose it would depend entirely on _which _year we visit."

Marty began to absent-mindedly flip through a physics journal lying on the workbench, its address label bearing Jules as the recipient. "Yeah, well, as long as we stay away from any year when I might be conscripted for military service, then I'm not picky," he muttered with a shiver, remembering the numerous times when he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in history and ended up being drafted to fight in some long ago war.

"1911!" Doc burst triumphantly from the other side of the lab, open book in hand, pointing to a page. "1911, Marty! _That's _where we'll go! Edison's factories in West Orange, New Jersey were in full swing and Edison himself was at the very _peak _of his engineering genius!" Doc plopped himself down on a stool across from Marty and appeared wistful. "1911, a very important year for science! Rutherford discovered the existence of compact nuclear atoms _and _superconductivity was discovered by Onnes. Those were the days when the public _reveled _in scientific discovery, and laid the foundations for much of my _own _work."

"That's great, Doc," Marty commented in a distracted tone, his attention absorbed in marveling at what, to him, looked like hieroglyphics covering each page of the physics journal. "I still don't understand most of it, though."

"Not for lack of _trying _on my part," Doc observed sardonically, shutting the book. "Now! We must find _something _to bring to offer Edison's representatives that might pique their interest enough to let us actually _meet_ the man – "

"Wait a minute, wouldn't that be changing the past if we brought something along and showed someone? And isn't it a cardinal rule that we _never _change the past?" Marty challenged as he shut the journal. He crossed his arms across his chest. "You managed to hammer _that _into my skull, at least."

"And for good reason!" Doc began to pick through mounds of various discarded materials on his work bench. "You're right, we can't bring anything into the past that doesn't belong there – except you and I and the time train, of course, but the very nature of our visit precludes such a risk – but it must be _something _that would, at the very least, _fool _them into thinking it was something new."

"Or we could just bring along something from 1998 and pretend that you and I invented it and save ourselves the hassle," Marty suggested with a playful shrug and a small smile, knowing Doc would never go for it. "I could live with being named as the inventor of the computer."

Doc turned to him with a flat expression. "Marty, changing the past to suit our own ends not only has disastrous implications for the timeline, but I refuse to re-shape the world as only I see fit. Just because we have the _ability_ doesn't mean we have the _right_."

Marty's smile widened slightly. "I always thought it was a stroke of good luck that you're not the dictator-type. We'd all be in a helluva lot of trouble."

"Power has never held much appeal for me," Doc admitted, resuming his search. "Although I could do _without _the label of 'mad scientist.'"

"Ah, those people are assholes, Doc. Don't listen to them," Marty urged quietly. Since settling back in the 90's, urban legends about the mad scientist Doc Brown had resumed in full fury, and it sadly wasn't unusual for Marty to pull up at the Brown residence only to find it displaying graffiti on the exterior walls saying as much in spray paint. "If they knew what was theoretically possible with the time train – "

"Don't even speak of it!" Doc shook his head. "When I first completed the DeLorean time machine, I had to make a strict promise to myself, one that could _never _be broken because there was no one to hold me accountable but _myself _if I transgressed. I decided that I could never use time travel with the expressed _intent_ to rearrange the past or the future to benefit myself or those I loved – we all have the right to live in a world where free will remains the best way to shape the world. The ability to shape and manipulate history should never belong to anyone, Marty. Not anyone."

"Hey, you sent me to 2015 to _prevent _a disaster with my kids, right? So how can you say you never had the intent to change the future?"

"Fair warning of knowledge I've gained through time travel is one thing, Marty. And I wanted you to _see _it. But I don't see the virtue in changing things purely for our benefit."

Marty nodded. "Yeah. I know. Gets tempting sometimes though, doesn't it?"

"I'm human, aren't I?" Doc suddenly seized on a small, round metal disk from the pile in front of him, the disk having recently been discarded from a boombox he'd dismantled when an experiment called for a speaker. He held it up to Marty's face. "Here it is! In 1906, Edison applied for and was permitted a patent for an electroplating process that _he'd _invented. If we can convince his representatives that _this little piece of metal _is a cheaper and stronger alloy than the ones he uses in _his _process, perhaps we'll be granted an interview!" He began to pace, turning the disk over and over in his hand. "Tin has been around for 4,000 years, but they won't know that _this piece _is just a bit of refined tin, available in 1911, until they _test _it - and by then, we'd be long gone!"

Marty shrugged, thinking that stranger things had happened - and often. "Whatever you say, Doc."

Doc threw his lab apron over a chair and checked his wristwatch. "Come on, we'd better get going. If the antics the time train has been pulling lately are any indication, it'll _take _her a while to - "

"Wait," Marty said, holding his hand up and pausing. "You sure we should be riding around in a time machine that's...uh, malfunctioning?"

Doc waved him away and began to walk towards the shed on the other side of the yard where the time train was kept. "Nonsense, Marty! She's just getting a little up there in years, and like all of us when we get older, she's just a little ornery. Believe me, she'll get us there and back. She's _fine!" _

Perhaps against his better judgement, Marty pursed his lips slightly but nevertheless followed Doc to the structure at the back of the large yard. It had been built to resemble a ramshackle, over-sized garden shed but had more security measures in place than some of the highest-tech bank vaults in the country in order to protect its precious contents.

"So when you say _antics," _Marty ventured carefully, "exactly what do you mean?"

"Nothing dangerous," Doc assured him, pushing back the doors of the shed.

"Doc, what _you _think is dangerous, and what the _rest of the world _thinks is dangerous - "

"Marty, you worry too much!" Doc persisted. He patted Marty on the back. "I wouldn't leave Jennifer without a husband or Hill Valley High without a music teacher. Come on, climb up!"

Marty did as he was told and ducked into the compartment of the time train, settling himself on one of the padded benches. "We're coming right back, right?"

"Of course!" Doc burst. He threw a few levers forward and the engines of the train began to him. He grinned. "1911, here we come!"


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5 - Boom_

* * *

><p><em><strong>June 23rd, 2011<strong>_  
><em><strong>12:17pm<strong>_

It had started, as so many ideas and anxieties often do, with an off-hand comment.

Jules had been fascinated with science and his father's inventions for as far back as he could remember. Some of his earliest memories were of his father's workshop in 19th century Hill Valley, where the family lived until Jules was five and Verne was two, as their father perfected what would eventually come to be known in their family as the "time train" - a time machine that salvaged its hull from an old steam engine his father had somehow negotiated to purchase. As far as Jules could tell, the train had been decommissioned and left to rot in the train yard when his father was possessed with the idea of building another time machine, his first having been sent forward to 20th century Hill Valley carrying a seventeen year old Marty McFly, where it was then destroyed by a diesel locomotive. Jules had always found the shape of his father's new machine to be somewhat ironic, as it was a train that had destroyed the DeLorean.

Emmett L. Brown - or "Doc" as most people had begun calling him by that time, Marty's nickname having been picked up by the locals - had had the train towed to a section of track that was due for demolition, as it was far outside of any towns that could deem a railway line useful for their purposes. He'd had just ten months between the time when the train was deposited on the tracks and the demolition date, and thus had worked quickly to retrofit the train with the necessary components to make flight possible. Jules vaguely remembered his mother's incredulity at the thought that any sort of flying machine - especially one without substantial wings or visible motors - could be concocted in such a short span of time, regardless of her husband's brilliance for all things mechanical. The project was a family affair, with Clara, Doc and at times even the three year old Jules helping to create, craft and install parts into the old locomotive, spurred on only by Doc's insistence that it _could _be done, even though it never _had _been done.

This was Jules' first lesson in never letting an outlandish idea stop one from attempting it.

A very large, very long building had been constructed on a tract of land owned by Doc about a mile from the abandoned track. Though the hired hands who performed the construction work were baffled by the idea of a retractable roof, they nevertheless followed Doc's specifications exactly, and were astounded when the entire length of the roof could be opened simply by working a collection of pulls and levers inside the building. Doc paid them extra to keep them quiet about the building project, and somewhat surprisingly, they'd held up their end of the bargain, perhaps feeling that any man who could engineer such a marvel could also dispose of them if he so chose. While this wasn't exactly Doc's style, he let the workers believe it - another one of Jules' first lessons was that technology from the future should never be used in the past...at least, not visibly.

One afternoon, Doc had burst through the doors of their small house, covered in grease and dirt, and practically bellowed in delight with the news that the anti-gravity device installed in the train was ready, and that the train could be moved into the new building that very night. His enthusiasm thrilled Jules, who even at that age felt immensely proud that he'd managed to help with one of his father's projects. Even more thrilling was when Doc lifted the small boy up on his shoulders, grinned, and boasted that he couldn't have done it without his little boy.

Under the cover of night, Doc and Jules stole out into the evening towards their train. Clara, who was heavily pregnant, opted to stay behind, with the excuse that she was feeling unwell. Father and son rode on a single horse to the train, and Jules could still remember that gritty feeling of immense anticipation tinged with a little fear as the train's newly installed anti-gravity device began to buzz and hum. The cabin lit up with what seemed like a million small lights, looking to the little boy like all the stars of the sky ablaze, and a moment later Doc stuck his head out of the window and began crowing with delight when he discovered they were airborne. "We're the first human beings to achieve flight!" his father had hollered to him over the strange noises whirring around them.

The flight itself took all of three minutes, though it seemed infinitely longer to Jules. The retractable roof of the "little laboratory" (as Doc humbly called it) had been left open and the train made a smooth controlled descent onto its new platform, where Doc could begin to install the components that would make time travel possible.

Jules remembered the feeling of the cool night wind on his cheeks as he rode in the saddle in front of his father, their horse galloping swiftly back towards town a few hours later, after the new laboratory had been secured from trespassers and Doc could be sure that the anti-gravity components were cooling down correctly. It seemed only a moment later that Jules was running back towards the house while his father tied up the horse; Jules threw open the door, eager to tell his mother all that he'd seen that night, but stopped dead in the middle of the entry hall. A rotund, red cheeked man smiled warmly at him, packing odd-looking instruments into a carrying satchel, and declared, "Well, well young man! You've got a brand new baby brother!"

Needless to say, the train's first journey was no longer the biggest news of the evening.

Jules' first memories of his brother were of a small, pink, squealing thing swathed in blankets and resting against his mother's chest. Jules climbed up into bed with his mother, who was still surrounded by neighbor wives who were all chattering that they had never _seen _such a quick birth, and that the child would _surely _be in a hurry for the rest of his life, and that _Dr. _Brown (the ladies refused to call him "Doc", deeming it improper and provincial) was just _lucky _that Clara had caring neighbors to fetch the doctor when the labor pains began. Jules peeled back the light blue blanket just enough to catch sight of this strange being's bright yellow hair, large eyes and enormous hands.

"I think we'll call him Verne," his mother had cooed.

The next two years were a blur of activity for the family. Clara, being a teacher by trade, insisted that Jules get normal lessons in addition to helping his father in the new laboratory, and Jules dutifully learned geography, arithmetic, history and the alphabet from his mother in the morning, while the afternoon was always spent in Doc's laboratory. Clara helped them as much as possible, but as Verne was a particularly loud and insistent child, her time in the lab was limited.

And so Jules Brown began his scientific career at the knee of his father, whom he considered nothing less than a wizard possessed of every kind of magic.

Over the years, he learned that it wasn't magic he was seeing: it was chemical reactions, electrical currents, everything that could be measured, studied and mastered. The world lost none of its amazement despite these discoveries; if anything, Jules' wonder of the world was enhanced the more he understood it.

Two weeks after Jules' fifth birthday, his father announced that the time had come. Although Jules did not fully understand, despite his parents taking great pains to explain to him where they were going and what they'd be doing, the Brown family packed up as much as they could fit into the new time train. The first time Jules had walked through the living quarters of the train he was flabbergasted that it could seem so large and roomy, despite only being the length and breadth of a normal carriageway car. Living on a train would seem impossibly cool for any five year old, and Jules Brown was no different.

The boys grew up on a steady diet of adventure, their mother's lessons, their father's inventions (with all of the swearing and explosions that seemed to go along with it), and of experiencing life in a way that no one save themselves could possibly imagine. It was only when Jules was eleven and Verne was eight that Doc and Clara came to the decision that their sons needed some semblance of a normal childhood and a steady home if they were ever to be fully functional adults.

Without much discussion, Doc and Clara both decided that Hill Valley would be their permanent home. Doc had been openly lamenting missing Marty, as well as French fries and his favorite radio station, on an often enough basis that it was also quickly decided to settle in a year that was only several years after Doc had left (their logic being that it would otherwise be nigh on _impossible _to explain the presence of Jules and Verne). The 1990's, Doc and Clara knew, were a relatively safe and prosperous time in which to place their family, and they picked a year early in the decade in which to stay. Before their final move, Doc did something that he'd told Marty on more than one occasion not to do - he used time travel for financial gain.

Doc figured it this way: He couldn't support a family of four by living the way he had lived before the time machine was built. He also couldn't ever see himself fitting into the 9-to-5 world after all of the adventures through time he'd seen and experienced. Thus, before leaving the 19th century, Doc purchased as much stock as he could afford in a few companies he knew would be worth billions in the 20th century. By the time they arrived in 1990's Hill Valley, the Brown family were low-figured millionaires before they even touched the ground. Doc hadn't wanted to get _too _carried away, after all.

So the years went. Jules graduated from high school at age sixteen and started at university a month later, double majoring in physics and engineering. He worked with his father in the laboratory every day, either on his own inventions or helping Doc with some of his. By his twentieth birthday, Jules had twelve patents in his name, had published fourteen articles in various engineering and physics journals, received high-ranking job offers from companies like IBM and government agencies like the CIA, and had an offer for a full scholarship to MIT.

He had also never had a friend and had never been kissed. He figured there was a price for everything.

Jules turned down each and every offer that was laid before him. He had not gone seeking any of them and never thought too seriously about anything that might take him away from home for any length of time. Why would he? At the family home in Hill Valley, Jules had family companionship in his parents and Verne (who left for college at 18 and never moved back), he had a fully stocked and fully functional laboratory better than any university's, he had a brilliant scientific mentor in his father, and he had the ability to time travel to wherever and whenever he wanted at a drop of the hat. He was able to devote himself fully to his own projects and experiments without taking orders from a boss, his deadlines were self-imposed, and he got to eat his mother's cooking each day of the week. Life was fantastic.

For a while, anyway.

Jules was twenty-five when his mother died. Verne was twenty-two, newly married and a recent college graduate who had just started his first teaching job at Center City High School an hour away from Hill Valley. Jules had been the one to call his brother with the news, as their father was too distraught to do it, and he'd told Verne in a feeble voice the only words he could pull together: "She just went grocery shopping, and she never came back."

The car that had broadsided Clara's had been doing sixty-five in a thirty mph zone. Apparently the other driver, a sixteen year old with about two weeks' driving experience under his belt, had been trying to scare his friends by hitting the accelerator just as they passed an intersection. In one of life's great ironies, the teenager and his friends escaped the crash with only minor injuries, while Clara had passed away on a stretcher as the ambulance sped towards the hospital. From the time of impact to her death was perhaps nine minutes. Twenty minutes later a call was placed to the Brown residence. Two minutes after that, Doc was on the way to the hospital and Jules was openly bawling at the kitchen table. A pot of his mother's stew still simmered on the stove where she'd left it less than an hour before.

So began a new era in Jules' life, one that was marked by a mixture of emotional pain (which he did his best to hide) and some of the most productive years of his career. At his father's urging, he enrolled in the PhD program at Hill Valley University to pursue his doctorate in physics. Doc had wanted Jules to work towards a goal, as the young man appeared lonelier and more unsure of himself than ever before after his mother's death. Clara's death had devastated the family, but Doc urged his sons not to let their lives come to a grinding halt because of it; their mother would have never wanted that, after all.

One day, as Jules was returning from the university science lab where he'd spent the better part of two days conducting an experiment, he entered the house to find it empty. A quick search of the laboratory also turned up empty. Hearing pounding noises, Jules darted to the large, glorified work shed in the backyard where the time train was kept, and upon opening the doors found Doc beginning to dismantle the time machine piece by piece.

"I can't trust myself, Julie," Doc had muttered absently, using Jules' most hated nickname. "Just because we can change the past doesn't mean we should, and I just can't trust myself with this anymore."

Jules immediately understood, and in his darker hours had entertained the same thought: going back to the day of his mother's death and preventing the accident. He protested weakly, but knew that as long as a time machine remained in their family, the temptation would always be there. A moment later, he was down on his hands and knees helping his father remove components. It was the only way.

Life continued as normally as it could in the years that followed. Every once in a while, Jules would notice that his father was no longer as quick and spry as he once was, even accounting for the fact that Doc was not particularly young when Jules and Verne were born. A procedure done in the 21st century had given him extra decades of life, but even these extra years were beginning to wear thin. One day, as Jules and his father were working side-by-side in the laboratory, Doc suddenly became dizzy and collapsed in a chair. It took him close to five minutes to catch his breath, and when he did, he looked up at Jules with the eyes of an old man and said something that began the next era in Jules' life:

"Someday, you're going to have to manage without me."

And thus the off-hand comment that had started Jules down the path that hit its first major roadblock as he, Verne and Marty were nearly blown to smithereens in the kitchen. It was not three months after Doc had spoken those words that Jules awoke to the first morning when his father was not downstairs, not in the laboratory, and not visiting with Marty. The doctors had called it a stroke, Verne had called it old age, and Marty had called it the long sleep after an extraordinary life. Jules called it the end of his world as he knew it - just not aloud.

The PhD program was abandoned by Jules shortly thereafter. He was more knowledgeable than his professors anyway, and would never find as good of a teacher as his father had been, and thus the program had felt like a worthless endeavor to pursue any further. It was a symbolic shutting of the doors for Jules: left alone in the house he'd shared with his parents, he purposely cut any ties with people besides Verne and Marty, refused most every job, project and research offer until they slowed to a mere trickle, stop publishing the results of his experiments and formulas, and began to let the grass grow in the backyard. His world could fit inside of a laboratory, and that was the only place that mattered.

In the three years since, Marty had kept in steady touch with Jules, even if it meant using his own key to get inside the house and force sociability on him. He felt it owed it to Doc. Marty remembered Jules as an offbeat sort of kid, and he'd grown into an eccentric adult, but Marty had always liked the older Brown brother; beneath the studious and sometimes haughty demeanor lay an essentially kind and sensitive soul every bit as brilliant as his father.

Of course, being caught in the middle of one of Jules' malfunctioning experiments always stretched Marty's patience a bit.

Jules awoke in a daze on the kitchen floor with a brown-headed blob shaking him irritably. As his eyes focused, he realized the blob was Marty and that he was trying to speak to him.

" - the _hell _was that, Jules?" Marty was yelling above a loud hum that Jules immediately realized was inside his own head. "Answer me! Jules!"

"Con - contain - " Jules stammered weakly, struggling to regain cognizance. Having been nearest the door when the explosion occurred, he'd received the brunt of the force. "It's the - the - containment - "

"What?" Verne hollered, evidently experiencing some temporary hearing loss of his own. "What'd he say?"

"Let's get him outside!" Marty yelled, grabbing Jules' shoulders. Verne complied and grabbed his brother's legs and together they dragged the half-conscious scientist out into the back yard, where they all collapsed onto the ground.

"First time I've been thankful for unmowed grass," Marty panted, wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "At least it's a soft place to sit."

Verne was hunched over Jules, patting his cheeks gently and wearing a worried expression. "Jules? Buddy? You okay?"

Still disoriented, Jules struggled to sit up. With help from Marty and Verne, he managed an upright position, coughing deeply and holding his throbbing head.

"Are you okay?" Verne's repeated in an anxious tone. "Do you need anything? Let me go get you some water - "

"No, Verne, do not attempt re-entry!" Jules warned in a hoarse voice, grabbing his brother's shirt to keep him from leaping up. "It is not a safe environment! It is highly unstable!"

"And is that the _reason _or the _result _of whatever that blast was in there?" Marty asked, his voice bordering on sounding angry. Now that he knew Jules was all right, he felt justified in taking the piss out of him for destroying the basement of the house that had been as much a home to him as it was for the Browns. "What the hell _happened, _Jules?"

The din inside his skull having receded slightly, Jules shook his head, somewhat baffled himself. "I would need to make an investigation for a complete evaluation of the incident, Martin. But if I had to hazard a guess, the chemicals I have been modifying for my latest experiment appear to have destabilized to the point of - of - "

" - going boom?" Verne guessed wryly, watching blue smog waft from the open back door entrance.

"If you wish to be trenchant about it, yes." Jules tried to stand to his feet. "I must repair and modify the environmental controls - "

"Wait a minute, you're not going back in there," Marty announced, grabbing Jules by the back of his jumpsuit and pulling him back to the ground. "You said yourself that it's dangerous."

Jules gave them both an apprehensive look. "Gentleman, I fear that while the yard is safe for now, if I am unable to repair the containment fields then we will soon be worrying about far more than a destroyed basement."

Marty and Verne stared at him warily for a moment before Marty said what they were both thinking: "Jules, what sort of chemicals are we talking about here? You mean it's stuff that could blow up the whole house?"

Jules gave a non-committal shrug while averting eye contact. "Well - yes, Martin. The house. And - and other things."

"_What _other things?" Marty asked in a firm voice.

"Well, the - the neighborhood, perhaps. Depending on the severity - and I would have to do a short investigation, you understand, to ascertain _exactly _how extensive the damage is, you see - we could perhaps not be blamed for worrying about Hill Valley itself, and the state, and - well - you must understand that the chemicals in use are highly unstable, as their combination does not occur naturally in nature, and are of a sort normally used in settings more controlled than my laboratory, meaning that - well - "

"Jules, for Christ's sake, just spit it out!" Verne burst.

Jules sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "It could, conceivably, at some point in the future, become destabilized to the point of destroying much of our hemisphere and rendering it uninhabitable for millenia."

Marty and Verne were instantly on their feet.

"Oh my god! If anybody in this universe had to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time, it just _had _to be you, didn't it? And it just _had _to be in _our _basement!" Verne cried, beginning to pace.

"I _do _wish people would stop referring to the space continuum as akin to a piece of fabric that can be ripped. Such a notion is nonsense," Jules said calmly, climbing to his feet unsteadily. "And I don't recall even _mentioning _the space-time continuum. If one could 'rip a hole in the space-time continuum', to use your erroneous alliteration, using chemicals - and chemicals _alone - _believe me, some inattentive nitwit in a high school chemistry class would have done it by now."

"Does it _matter exactly what you call it?" _Verne howled. "I'm getting a divorce, for chrissakes! Isn't that enough for one week? Do I also have to get _vaporized?" _

Jules and Verne's voices descended into nearly nonsensical bickering for a few seconds until Marty shouted, "All right everybody just _calm down!" _The brothers instantly quieted. Marty put a hand on Jules' shoulder and looked at him with his steady brown eyes. "We can figure out exactly what went wrong later. Right now, you said it's unstable, but you also said you could fix it, right?"

Jules nodded a little apprehensively. "Yes, the containment fields can be brought back into a normal range, creating a steadying effect on the chemicals - "

"What, and have it blow up again, this time maybe taking out the entire house? Or the town? Or the _world?"_Verne interrupted. The breeze had riled up his shaggy blond hair to such an extent that he now looked positively crazed as he paced along what used to be the flowerbeds. "No thanks! I don't need to live with the constant fear of being blasted to kingdom come!"

"Oh, it would _hardly _destroy the entire world, Verne!" Jules snapped brusquely, hands on hips. "It might turn a good portion of the northern hemisphere into a fiery hellscape of poisonous gases unsuitable for human habitation for approximately the next two hundred centuries, but hardly the _world._"

Verne stopped pacing and threw his brother an exasperated expression. "Get rid of those chemicals, and get rid of them fast!" Verne bellowed.

"They aren't precisely the sorts of chemicals you can just pour down a drain, Verne," Jules retorted, beginning to pace with his hands behind his back. "They are engineered for a specific purpose, and cannot be disposed of in any traditional manner. In fact, they cannot be disposed of at all."

"What? Can't be _disposed _of?" Marty exclaimed. "Where the hell did you _get _this stuff?"

"Unimportant. What I need to do now is work to repair the containment fields. The chemicals cannot be disposed of, but they can be contained and controlled. Approximately ten hours of repair work is needed to achieve this with one person working, and to determine the cause of the blast. Repairs will render the experiment safe for a period of time, and - "

"Wait, a period of time? You mean even after you fix this little chemical cocktail of yours, it still isn't safe?"

"Technically I have not yet found a way to _make _it safe," Jules said in a reticent voice.

An incredulous glare passed Verne's face. "Well when the hell were you going to find time to figure it out, genius? When we were blown into the stratosphere?" he burst.

"Knock it off! Let's all just calm down and think about this rationally for a minute," Marty suggested, holding his hands up as if in surrender. "We aren't going to get anywhere with you two sniping at each other. Look, if that containment field can be repaired, it'll buy Jules some more time to figure out how to fix it permanently. So let's get to work."

Jules shook his head. "Not only is this a dangerous situation, Martin, but also requires highly skilled technical expertise in this area. I'm afraid that I am the only one who can perform repairs on the containment field."

Marty gave Jules a long, searching look, making Jules feel as though he was about as tall as a blade of grass. Marty leaned in close to Jules, placed a hand on his shoulder, and spoke in just above a whisper, "Let me tell you something, Jules. I may not be an engineer, or a physicist or a chemistry guru like you. But I knew your dad for a long time, and I did a lot of repair work with him on more advanced machinery than you probably even _you've_ seen, with not only my future, but his on the line. I know the risks. I'm willing to bet your brother does too. We'll take them if it gives us a better chance of saving not just our lives, but everyone's, because I sure as hell don't want my wife and family living down the street from something that could turn Hill Valley into scorched earth with little to no warning. So you get your butt into that workshed, get us all biohazard suits, and _let's go to work_. Understand?"

Chastened, Jules nodded and retrieved three biohazard suits from the old laboratory that used to hold the time train. The three of them suited up in the backyard before heading back into the house.

"Here goes everything," Verne muttered to himself.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6 - Lift Off_

* * *

><p><strong>June 27th, 1998<strong>  
><strong>9:30am<strong>

Marty picked at a bit of lint stuck to his sweatpants as he listened to the whirring noises of the time train as it geared up for another travel through time. He threw a quick glance back towards the compartment behind them, which had served as the Brown family's home for several years and now functioned as a stock room of sorts, full of replacement parts, period-accurate currency from all different time periods, and even some freeze-dried food in the event that whatever destination was reached did not have food (or, as was sometimes the case, food deemed inedible to twentieth-century palettes). He shifted in his seat slightly and watched Doc keying in information that would take them to 1911.

"You still keep any clothes in the storage compartment back there, Doc?" he called over the sounds of the train. "I find it hard to believe that _anyone _in 1911 would take a guy wearing a dirty shirt and sweatpants seriously."

"You're welcome to look!" Doc replied in a voice that meant it would probably be hit-or-miss. Marty nodded, got up, and slid open the doors to the storage compartment wide enough to let him pass through.

"Ah, God," he muttered at the sight in front of him, hitting the light and surveying the compartment somewhat dismayingly. If the previous trip had been rough enough - and with two curious teenagers who sometimes decided to take the time train for a joyride through history it was almost guaranteed - then it would explain why the contents in the compartment looked like a hurricane had blown through it. He began to pick through the piles on the floor, full of an interesting mix of costumes, books, money and food packages. Trying hard to remember any pictures he'd seen of people in the early twentieth century and the clothes they were wearing, he managed to wrangle a pair of dark slacks, a white button down shirt, and a brown tweed vest from the cornucopia of chaos. He pried his t-shirt off his torso, throwing it back through the doors into the engine room, and quickly put on the shirt and buttoned the vest over it. Doc still appeared busy at the controls, scribbling a few last calculations down into a notebook, but nevertheless Marty shyly slid the compartment doors closed before peeling off his sweatpants and putting on the slacks.

A sudden, unexpected jerk sent Marty crashing to the floor. He groaned quietly, feeling his arm beginning to bleed, and shouted, "Everything all right up there Doc?"

"Fine, fine!" Doc hollered back in a distracted tone.

"Antics," Marty reminded himself, rolling over on his back. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and surveyed his arm; sure enough, blood was beginning to seep from a small cut on his forearm. With a grimace, he pulled himself onto all fours, beginning to search through the pile in which he'd fallen for whatever had slashed his skin. With a sigh, he found a small box, now crushed, sitting sadly on the floor, mangled beyond recognition. Turning the box over in his hand, he found that it was one of the numbered drawers that came out of the large chest of drawers making up the back of the storage compartment - drawers that, at times, shot out of the wall during a turbulent journey. Knowing there wasn't much he could do about it, Marty absentmindedly shoved it back into the correct slot and began searching for the first aid kit that Clara always insisted on taking with them.

"Lift-off, Marty!" Doc warned from the front.

"Shit," Marty swore, grabbing the first aid kit from where it lay on top of a pile, and stumbled back into the engine compartment. Lift-off always preceded take-off, which tended to be bumpy, and Marty immediately clasped his hand around the arm of the bench as he sat.

"It's been _far _too long!" Doc cried happily from his position up front, where he stood firmly in front of the control panel and grasping tightly onto a lever in each hand, looking for all the world like a well-traveled sea captain piloting his trusty ship. Doc was in his element and he inhaled deeply, loving every whirr, bang and click coming from his machine; the progression of sounds were like a favorite song one knows every word to, and never failed to send a happy chill through his spine. "Haven't had much a chance for these little jaunts lately," he explained to Marty, who was absorbed in a one-handed bandaging of his arm as his other hand held steadfastly to the bench's handle. "Everyone's so _busy! _Jules finishing up college, Verne in school and _no doubt _engrossed with the nudie magazines he probably thinks I don't know about, and Clara - _Clara _just isn't as interested in time travelling anymore, I don't know what - "

A loud whining sound seemed to rise ethereally from the train, interrupting Doc's speech and making the hair on the back of Marty's neck rise.

"What was _that?" _Marty shouted, shooting to his feet and ready to panic. "Doc, I've never heard the train - "

"It's all right, it's all right!" Doc bellowed in what he hoped was a reassuring voice as he cranked a few more levers in front of him desperately. "Probably just some steam esca - "

Another sound, like metal hitting metal, rang out through the engine compartment again, and a split-second later, before either of them had a chance to react, a strong jolt rocked the carriage, sending them toppling to the floor. Marty's mind faintly registered the sound of silverware and boxes rattling around in the storage compartment, but Doc was on his feet and back at the controls much more swiftly than could normally be expected for a man his age. He slammed a few levers forward and then seemed to hang on for dear life.

For his part, Marty put his hands over his eyes and stayed put on the floor. _Jennifer always said I was gonna get myself killed on one of Doc Brown's excursions, _he thought dourly to himself.

All sounds, save the sound of the engines, suddenly ceased. A few seconds later, when it seemed like he might live after all, Marty looked up to find Doc peering excitedly out of the train's windows with a boyish grin adorning his face.

"Marty, we did it!" he crowed. "We made it! We're here!"

Marty climbed to his feet unsteadily, his knees still shaking, and joined Doc at the windows. They were hovering perhaps a hundred feet from the ground, and were surrounded by what looked like an unending lush forest of green trees. A warm breeze hit Marty's cheek and he finally released the breath he'd been holding for what seemed an eternity.

"Where's 'here' exactly?" Marty asked, trying to look on the horizon for any tell-tale signs of civilization.

"Approximately twelve miles outside of West Orange, New Jersey," Doc said, glancing at his notes. "I thought a flying train might cause a bit of a _ruckus _if we emerged within in the city limits."

"Yeah, but I can't even _see _a city," Marty said, craning his neck out the window, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of smog that would indicate a nearby city.

"Twelve miles _south _of here, and we're pointing _north,_" Doc clarified, digging a map out of a drawer underneath the controls and sticking it in his back pocket. He made a satisfied sound and began to carefully maneuver the train towards the ground. "We'll hitchhike our way to West Orange and hide the time train in this forest."

After taking a few minutes to construct his own 1911-appropriate outfit in the storage compartment, Doc led the way down the train's stairs and breathed in the forest air with a satisfied expression. "Smell that fresh air, Marty! Not like the exhaust-ridden air of the late twentieth century!" he observed with a hint of disdain in his voice, stepping out into the small clearing where he'd managed to land the train.

Marty followed him down the stairs, put his hands on his hips, and gave his surroundings a quick glance. "It's beautiful, Doc, but where's the road?"

"This way!" Doc burst and began a quick stride through a copse of trees. Marty followed.

"Doc, what about those noises we heard in the train?" he asked, running a hand through his hair somewhat nervously. "I've ridden in that train plenty of times. Never heard anything like that."

Doc shook his head. "No idea. Haven't heard sounds like that in _years, _and even then, not from the time train."

His curiosity piqued, Marty ventured, "Where? Where have you heard them?"

Doc gave a small shrug and shook his head again as they continued to walk. "Well, you remember that unfortunate event in the lightening storm back in 1955, when you watched the DeLorean vanish with me inside."

"When you went back to 1885. Sure, I remember it like it was yesterday." Realization hit him and Marty jogged a few steps so that he matched Doc stride for stride. "Wait a minute. You're telling me that the last time you heard sounds like that coming from a time machine was when you were sent back...to the _wrong _year?"

Doc stopped mid-stride, coming to an abrupt halt. He turned to Marty with wide eyes. "Let's not panic, Marty," Doc said in a quiet tone. "While it is possible that the time train sent us to the wrong time again - "

_"Again!" _Marty burst. He turned around several times, his breath becoming quick. "You mean the time train has done it _before? _Doc! What if - what if we're back in the _Stone Age _or something? What if that train doesn't take us _back _to the right time? I gotta get home again! I got a family, a new house - "

"I said don't panic!" Doc hissed, more vehement than was usual for him. "There _does _appear to be a road ahead, so we aren't so far back in history as to be in _real _danger from anything like dinosaurs or early man." Seeing that this didn't do much to quell Marty's rising anxiety, Doc placed his hands on Marty's shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "Marty, listen to me," Doc said seriously. "I would never purposely put you in harm's way. Let's start walking on the road and see where it takes us."

Marty exhaled loudly, trying to slow his heartbeat, which felt like it was thumping in his throat. "All right," he said quietly. "You're the Doc, Doc."

Doc patted Marty comfortingly on the shoulder and the two made their way through brambles and tree roots until they emerged onto the road. They both looked in opposite directions, trying to spot another human being, and eventually began walking in the middle of the road towards town.

"Never know," Doc murmured more to himself than his friend. "Might be the start of a very interesting adventure."

"A _new house _is an adventure," Marty rejoined. "This..._this _is a nightmare."

"Marty," Doc said disapprovingly, drawing out the last syllable as he often did when impatient. "Since when is adventure so narrowly defined?"

They continued to walk in silence for a few more minutes before Marty quietly asked, "Doc, how did you and Clara know that you wanted to come back and settle down? I mean...how did you know it was the right choice, when you felt like you had so _many _choices?"

Doc seemed to consider for a moment, then declared, "I guess we didn't know for sure. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"And was it?"

"Yes," he said after a pause. "Yes, it was the right choice."

"But how do you _know?" _

Doc stopped walking and gave Marty a searching look. "Something worrying you, Marty?"

"Besides this, you mean?" Marty gestured to the scene around them. He sighed. "I don't know, Doc, I...I sometimes get to thinking I've gotten it all wrong with my life, you know? I guess it's this house thing that's making me get cold feet. It's a big step. It's...it's basically like saying my life...my life is _settled _now, that there's no turning back. That...that certain dreams are over and done with."

"Marty, I was twice your age when I finally achieved my dream," Doc said with a slight shake of his head, beginning to walk again. "Life doesn't stop at a certain age. You wouldn't trade Jennifer and the kids for anything in the world, would you?"

"No, no of course not. That's not what I mean. It's just..." Marty bit his lip, trying to find the right thing to say. "It's just that sometimes - "

The blaring shriek of a car horn cut him off, making both he and Doc jump to either side of the road just in time to see a red convertible of sleek design screech to a halt in front of them. "What the hell is the matter with you?" an obese middle-aged man wearing sunglasses demanded of them from the driver's seat. "What the hell are you doing in the middle of the road?" He slid his sunglasses down his nose an inch or so, scrutinizing Doc and Marty's clothes. "And what the hell are you _wearing?" _

With worry lines beginning to appear on his face, Marty walked a few steps forward towards the driver. "Yeah, we're, uh...just a little lost. Can you tell us where we are?"

"Where ya _are? _You _insane?" _the man scoffed. "You're in _Jersey, _for Chrissakes. What, you guys drunks or somethin'?"

"Can you tell us today's date?" Doc asked, taking off his hat and also sidling up to the side of the car.

_"Jee-_zus, you _are _drunks. Can't even keep track of the days, eh? People like you _disgust _me," the man spat as he took out a small, black, rectangular thing from his pocket. Marty watched in fascination as the screen of the device lit up like a small television screen. The man, meanwhile, was shaking his head. "I'm callin' the cops. You guys can't just be wanderin' around out here in the wilderness - "

"What is that marvelous contraption you have there?" Doc asked, the same question on Marty's mind, as they both watched graphics and numbers appear on the man's screen.

"You never seen an _iPhone _before? What are you guys, like lunatics who live out in the forest or something?" the man continued to demand in the same aggravated tone of voice. "Wait 'til my brother in law gets a load of this. Here, stand still." With this, the man held up the rectangle in front of Marty and a small _ching, _which Marty could have sworn was the sound of a camera taking a picture, echoed through the air. The man began to laugh as he typed something on screen. "He _loves _wackos like you guys. Has all these crazy conspiracy theories 'bout time travellers. I told him, only _time travelling _he does is when he drinks an entire bottle of scotch and passes out cold in his basement for two days."

As the man continued to type, Marty looked the car over carefully; it certainly didn't resemble the boxy cars of 1998, and he caught a few words coming from the radio that identified the station as one coming out of Paris. "How are you picking up radio transmissions from _Paris?" _Marty asked incredulously, forgetting his awe for a moment. He quickly scanned the exterior of a car for an antenna large enough to receive transmissions from so far away, but quickly found that there wasn't one.

The driver gave him a disbelieving, slack-jawed look. "Never heard of satellite radio either, eh? _Jee-_zus, maybe you _are _time travelers!" With this, the man began to laugh heartily at his own joke. He put his car in gear. "I'd love to sit here and shoot the shit with you about all _your _time an' all, but I'm a busy guy. Ciao." With that, he sped away, tires squealing for effect. Doc and Marty watched him go, their jaws agape.

"Well Doc," Marty said as soon as he found his voice. "I don't think we're in 1911."


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7 - Revelation_

* * *

><p><em><strong>June 23rd, 2011<strong>_  
><em><strong>12:30pm<strong>_

When Verne descended down the steps into the basement, it was hard to tell where the piles of debris ended and the walls of the house began. Stretched before them were mounds of what looked like scrap metal with blue smoke rising from the twisted refuse. "Where's all this smoke coming from?" he shouted to Jules through his biohelmet.

"It is not smoke, Verne," Jules answered, his eyes also scanning the wreck of a laboratory in front of them. "It is steam."

"Whatever it is, it looks like a tornado ripped through here," Verne observed. He crunched through a pile of unidentifiable parts and shook his head sadly. "Glad Dad thought to reinforce the walls and ceiling of the basement when it was built. Whole house would have blown otherwise. There's almost nothing left."

Marty glanced over at Jules. "Sorry about your lab, Jules. I know it's sort of your refuge from...well, everywhere that _isn't _your lab."

Jules appeared non-plussed, shrugging slightly. "I have inadvertently reduced the lab to little more than expensive rubble no less than seven times in my life, Marty."

"Seven?"

"Science can be inherently risky," Jules replied. "If nothing else, it will be a good excuse to add some upgrades I had been considering. Destruction often has its advantages; namely, it clears out the old to make way for the new."

"Wish I could be so optimistic," Verne said. He sniffed the filtered air piping through his helmet; the metallic tang of whatever chemicals there were in the air made his nose ache, but there was something familiar in the odor; he just couldn't place it. "What are you doing with all this stuff down here, anyway?"

"A full explanation is unimportant for our present purposes," Jules said. He poked a smattering of glass shards with his boot. "The most pressing matter lay on the east end of the room." He looked over at Marty and Verne expectantly, smiling. "Did you understand my jest? 'Pressing matter'? Because microscopic matter in the chemicals was unduly pressurized to create detonation?" He chortled softly at his own joke before catching the deadpan glares from Marty and Verne.

"Let's get started, ok?" Marty recommended good-naturedly. "Tell us what you need us to do."

For the next several hours, the three of them worked diligently on a gizmo that could only be described as looking like a very complicated hamster wheel which, Jules explained to them somewhat hotly, was most _certainly _not for the amusement of rodentia, but rather a containment vessel for the safe confinement of high explosive chemicals. Neither Marty nor Verne attempted any further questioning on the purpose of such chemicals, or what they were being used for, or where Jules had obtained them - whenever they broached the subject, it produced a torrent of scientific jargon that neither one of them understood, which, Verne felt sure, was exactly Jules' plan.

After four hours, Jules took an air quality reading and determined the environment was safe enough to work in without the hazmat suits. Verne yanked his helmet off gratefully and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a rag.

"Thank God," he muttered.

"I highly doubt He had anything to do with this," Jules noted, grabbing a wench and beginning to tighten some of the exterior bolts of the containment vessel. Such tools were unusual in what amounted to chemistry experiments, but he was as much mechanic as chemist and built most of his contraptions by hand.

Marty also pulled off his helmet and leaned against the wall. It wasn't exactly what he'd imagined doing on a Saturday afternoon, but it beat having the neighborhood incinerated. "You guys ever think it's odd you were both named after the same guy, and you're complete opposites?" he asked, wiping a sleeve across his forehead.

Verne sank down onto a metal trunk that had been overturned in the blast. "Want to know something funny? I dropped the 'e' at the end of my name for a long time. Years, in fact," Verne admitted somewhat sheepishly with a slow laugh, rubbing the rag over his face again. "I guess I thought it made me look pretentious or something."

Jules scoffed quietly. "How could a vowel possibly be an indicator of affectation?" he demanded tiredly as he leaned over from his position on the floor and grabbed a socket wrench from the pile of greasy, well-worn tools which crowned that corner of the workspace. "Your namesake is a surname, and surnames don't follow the same syntactic rules as given names."

"Well, I'm sure if I'd explained it _that _way," Verne replied sarcastically with a roll of his eyes, throwing the rag across his shoulder. All three of their biosuits were covered in grime, grit and grease. The basement had never had air conditioning, and the weather had been unusually warm for several days, meaning that the temperature in the garage was a mere few degrees below what Verne imagined the temperature of Hell might be. He tried to wipe his sweat-coated face once more with the rag, only to find that it had dried and hardened into a wizened clump with the accumulation of grease and sweat. Making a face, he dropped the rag in a corner and leaned against the doorway back into the house. "I've never needed a shower and a cold beer worse in my life than I do right now," he admitted, stretching his arms above him.

"Truer words never spoken," Marty agreed. He took a step forward to follow Verne back up into the house and tripped over something, sending him tumbling to the ground. He looked up to find his foot entangled in a roll of silicone tubing. Grabbing it and holding it close to his eyes for inspection, he cracked a sad smile. "Boy, you know what this stuff reminds me of? That...that _tubing _stuff that was in the flux capacitor. You remember that Verne?"

"Yeah, of course!" Verne responded as he took a length of the tube and rolled it through his fingers. "Pop used to pump this weird cocktail of chemicals through that stuff to prepare it to be used in the flux capacitor. And those chemicals used to stink worse than pig shi - " Verne froze, his sentence hanging in the air unfinished. He swiveled slowly to where his brother crouched on the floor, who was also seemingly frozen in place waiting for Verne to finish his thought. "Come to think of it, it's _exactly _what I smelled when we first came down here," Verne said, each syllable rising in volume as he stepped towards his brother. "In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that whatever those chemicals are in that hamster wheel of yours are the _exact _same chemicals that Pop used to treat the delivery cords for the flux capacitor with!"

Marty shot to his feet, eyes wide. "Jules, you didn't - please tell me - "

"Really, I see no virtue in accusations!" Jules erupted, also shooting to his feet and turning to face them with a stormy expression. "Especially when you have no proof of your claims beyond your intangible olfactory and tactile memories!"

"All right then, how about the fact that you _refuse _to tell us what you're working on, and you _refused _to let me step foot down here last night? If that isn't an indicator of doing something you know you shouldn't, then I don't know what is!" Verne protested vehemently.

"Is that a fact, Verne?" Jules put his hands behind his back, bobbing up and down on his tiptoes, as though he were questioning a witness at a grand testimony. "I would like you to be aware that on more than one occasion, I have agreed to do work in conjunction with certain government agencies that preclude the possibility of disclosure of the project to any person without the highest of security clearances. Likewise, in my entrepreneurial career, I have often had reason to remain secretive about my work to prevent the risk of industrial espionage on these premises! Is it so impossible, then, that I would decide that the project in question was none of yours or Marty's concern, that the code of scientific ethics I have undertaken for myself _hinders _me from speaking in depth of its scope and purpose?"

Verne looked at him blankly for a moment before sputtering, "What's impossible is the way you _talk."_

"Regardless. The point stands," Jules said quickly in a voice that bordered on a pout, crossing his arms across his chest superciliously.

Verne sighed softly, wiping his still-damp forehead with the sleeve of the hazmat suit he was cocooned in. "I know you deal only in facts, Jules. But my gut feelings haven't ever let me down. And my gut feeling is that there's something - something _big - _that you don't want to tell us about. I don't need to remind you, of all people, of Pop's two biggest rules - one, that you shouldn't mess around with dangerous stuff you don't fully understand." He looked his brother square in the eyes. "And two - you don't go back in time to purposely change the future."

"If I knew to what you were eluding, perhaps I could assist you in your 'gut feeling', Verne," Jules responded quietly, picking up the wrench and placing it back on the pegboard that was its home. "But as I have no idea - "

_"Jules." _Verne stood and walked over to his brother, studying his face carefully. "You've never lied to me," he said gently. "Even when you thought it would upset me, or make me mad, or even when you didn't think it was any of my business. You've _never _lied to me." He put his hands on Jules' shoulders. "Please don't start now," he whispered.

Jules sighed and threw himself into a battered chair near his tool chest. "All right, Verne. What is it you want to know?"

Verne slowly sat down on an overturned metal crate next to the chair. "Are you building a time machine?" he asked bluntly, praying the answer wouldn't be what he already knew it was.

Jules only hesitated for a moment before answering, "Yes. I am."

"Perfect," Marty muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't get it. You worked with Dad on making repairs to the time train. So how do you explain _this?" _Verne asked, making a sweeping motion across the landscape of debris surrounding them.

"I did exterior work, Verne. Father never let me work with the internal mechanisms, as they were quite delicate and dangerous." Jules ran a hand across his forehead. "As such, I'm afraid I am not as competent in chemical containment fields as I had supposed, because in truth, Father never conveyed much about the internal workings of time travel to me."

"He must have it written down somewhere," Marty said, rustling through papers on a desk in the corner. "There must have been calculations, _thousands _of them - "

"Father never kept his notes as to the composition and construction of either time machine that he created, as he feared his notes accidentally falling into the wrong hands, and of the disastrous consequences of such a happenstance."

"Then how did you know where to even _start?" _

"I admit that I only had a few clues from which to work," Jules said. "I mainly had to rely on memory, which can be just as dangerous as entering into a new project with no knowledge of a project's logistics at all. I fear it has mostly been trial and error these past three years, although it has all been theoretical workings up until the point when I began to build the components of the flux capacitor. I knew enough of the chemicals used to get started, but I did not anticipate how difficult their maintenance would be. It was not until the chemicals began to become unstable that I realized how precarious the situation was. Unfortunately, these are not the sorts of things that can be easily scrapped or reversed; in fact, as I relayed to you earlier today, I am uncertain as to how to even deactivate them."

"But there has to be a way, right?" Marty asked in an anxious tone. "Doc wouldn't have ever started an experiment unless there was a way to back out of it if it became too dangerous to sustain."

"Indeed, you are correct in your assumptions, Martin," Jules said wearily. "But I fear I am not the scientist my father was."

The trio stood silently amidst the mess of tangled wires and twisted metal, the implications of the problem sinking in. "This is heavy..." Marty murmured as he sank into a sitting position on the floor.

"Dad _must _have known of a way. Otherwise how could _he _have built the flux capacitor without having all hell break loose like it did down here?" Verne persisted, frowning deeply and trying to remember any scrap of scientific mumbo jumbo his father had tried to instill, unsuccessfully, in him.

Jules fidgeted with his hands nervously. "Again, Verne. I must admit to not being as competent a scientist as Father was. He had many more years of knowledge than I currently do, and could have foreseen these sorts of problems before they arose; unfortunately, I did not."

Verne continued to hold Jules sternly in his gaze; there was something his older brother was not telling him - he just couldn't figure out what it was.

"So what can we do?" Marty asked.

"I am only aware of one way to safely eradicate these chemicals and start the project over again, but it necessitates time travel, and as we are not in possession of a time machine, it makes that particular possibility a moot point," Jules said, making a helpless gesture with his hands. "There is a chemical compound created in the future that would not only stabilize the technetium elemental extraction, but deactivate it without harm as well."

"Can't you just let it...you know...decay or something?" Marty asked with a helpless shrug. Although Doc had tried valiantly to teach Marty a shred of chemistry and physics, it had mostly been lost on the then-teenager, and continued to do so as an adult.

"That I would, Martin, except its half-life is 4.2 million years. Which is just slightly longer than the human lifespan, as I'm sure you're aware." Jules began to walk the perimeter of the ruined lab slowly, his face etched in concentration. "This element is radioactive, which complicates matters even more. Fortunately the blast was not so severe as to release radioactive elements into the atmosphere, at least not very much more than occurs in nature, but the containment cannot last forever."

"How long _can _it last?"

Jules scratched his temple and shrugged, furrowing his brow in thought. "Well, with its present repairs, I'd estimate that we'd be perfectly safe for at least a week, perhaps longer."

"All right, let's try this: when in the future _does _the solution for this happen?" Marty asked, beginning to pace alongside Jules, knowing there had to be a way out of this predicament; he'd gotten out of enough seemingly impossible scrapes with Doc that the word "insurmountable" meant very little to him.

Jules thought for a moment before declaring, "In approximately the 23rd century. When I was fifteen, Father and I visited the year 2243, where scientists had created a synthetic alloy capable of deactivating unstable synthetic technetium. He procured some of the modified isotopes for our use, and indeed did use it when he destroyed the time train. That way, no trace of any of the elements would be left to harm humans or the environment when they were no longer contained." He ran a hand over his exhausted face. "But as Father is dead, the 23rd century is still hundreds of years away, and I am unable to build an operable, safely-functioning time machine with my present materials and knowledge, I fear that I do not see a way out of this current predicament."

Marty's head snapped up. "Did he always keep that stuff on the time train?"

"Naturally," Jules said. "What better or more safe environment to keep it in?"

Marty turned to them slowly. "If the Doc kept that on the train, then...all we have to do is find the Doc."

Verne burst into short, barking laughter. "Yeah, that's the ticket!" he hooted. "Let's track down a time traveler! You always know where those guys are going to be! Easy as pie!"

"No, hang on," Marty insisted. He grabbed a bucket and turned it over to sit on. "Doc and I once _did _visit 2011. I _remember _it. Jules, you were in college by that time, so it would have been _after _Doc had gotten those isotopes. Granted, 2011 wasn't where we meant to end up, but the point is, we were _there. _Here. Whatever._" _

"Explain further, Martin!" Jules urged. "Make haste!"

"One of Doc's heroes was Thomas Edison - hell, you guys know that - and he decided that just _once _he wanted to meet the man. He told me that by 1911, Edison was running a whole network of factories and laboratories in New Jersey. Doc thought that we could get a chance to meet the man himself if we were in the right place at the right time. But the time train, especially in its later years, wasn't as reliable as it once was - "

"You can say that again," Verne muttered, remembering a time when the family had ended up in 1328 Britain instead of 1928, and his father had very nearly been burned for witchcraft when the locals caught sight of him using a calculator to try and determine a new trajectory to get them to the right time period.

" - and we ended up in _2011 _instead, in a big forest outside of West Orange, New Jersey, and - well, look, the point is, we were there, and we can catch us - the other Doc and Marty, I mean - and get Doc to hand over some of those - those - whatever they are. And why wouldn't he give us some? I mean, if his son was about to blow up the world - "

"Only _this _hemisphere would be affected!" Jules interrupted tersely. "The other one would be perfectly safe."

_"This _hemisphere is the one I'm concerned with," Marty said, pointing out the obvious. "Jules, this could work. All I need to do is find out the date we landed."

"And how will you do that?" Verne asked.

Marty thought hard for a minute before his face lit up. "Two days after we got back, Jennifer and I closed on our house. All I have to do is look on our mortgage papers to find the date! Doc always insisted if we weren't visiting a precise day in history, that we travel concurrently on the same day to a point in the past or future. He said otherwise he was liable to miss months of his own life when we traveled back." Marty had already stripped his hazmat suit off and was putting his shoes back on. "Jen and I moved into our place in early July, I remember. So we must have signed the papers in mid to late June. We're cutting it close, but this might just work!"

Jules and Verne followed Marty out to his car, urging him to hurry home to find the date, and then get back to the Brown residence as quickly as possible. As Marty backed out of the pebbly driveway with a screech, Verne clapped his hands together and rubbed them, giving Jules a small smile.

"Thank God for Marty, eh? That guy's been saving our butts our whole lives," Verne said with a grin. "Now all we have to do is pack and find a flight! What airlines fly outta Hill Valley Regional? Got a preference?"

"Oh. Yes. About that." Jules struck a somewhat stiff pose that never boded well. "You see Verne, I do not fly."

"You don't fly? What do you mean, you don't fly?"

"I had a…falling out with the airlines about eight years ago."

"You had a – what the hell do you mean, a falling out? How does somebody have a 'falling out' with _all of the airlines?" _Verne cried, nearly apoplectic.

"Well have you ever _seen _luggage carousels?" Jules burst suddenly, a vehement edge to his voice. Verne gave him a strange look. "I went to the airlines with blueprints my pressurized compacter for textiles because it would have _revolutionized _the way they transport luggage! If they'd used my machine to treat the luggage, it only would have taken up a _third _of its previous space in the cargo area, and they could have used that extra cargo space to transport other goods, such as mail, or mercantile goods, or placed a few extra seats for passengers in the area and sold them at deep discounts."

"Are you _crazy? _No one would ride in the cargo area of an airplane! That's insanity! And what in the _hell _is a pressurized compactor for tactiles?"

_"Textiles. _It removes air from a given area, creating a flattening effect and makes for more efficient use of space." Jules made a crushing motion with his hands. Verne's mouth was agape.

"You mean like a Ziploc bag when you squeeze all the air out? Jules, for Christ's sake, flattening people's luggage would destroy anything that wasn't clothing!"

"That seemed to be the consensus of the airlines, but I ask you Verne, if it was _that _precious, why stow it in your luggage?" Jules demanded tempestuously.

"You mean that's why you won't fly? Because they rejected your idea?"

_"Yes! _Why is this so difficult to comprehend? If a scientist can't stand behind his own work, then he isn't much of a scientist." Jules kicked at the ground. "And anyway, even if I hadn't taken my non-negotiable stand against commercial airlines, they seemed to have misinterpreted my idea as something akin to a _threat _and I am on the no-fly list. Honestly, you tell _one _airline executive that they'll be _sorry - _even if I _did _mean that they'd be _sorry _to miss such an opportunity - and it gets _completely _blown out of proportion."

Verne took a deep breath. "So let me get this straight. Because the airlines made a rational decision in not approving your idiotic idea, which would have _never _worked, not only because it would crush everything anyone put in a suitcase, but also because _weight _is much more important than _space _to the airworthiness of an airplane, we will now have to drive…" He looked out at the road that ran in front of their house that eventually led to the highway. "…we now have to _drive _all the way to the East coast? Is _that _what you're telling me? Do you have any _idea _how long this will take, or what will happen if we don't make it in time?" he roared.

Jules made a thoughtful sound with another complacent shrug. "Yes brother, I'm afraid it is the only viable means of transportation left to us at the moment, as we'll be traveling through vast swaths of land where public transportation is scant if existing at all, and commercial transcontinental rail travel is still both expensive and inefficient. A car is the only logical alternative."

Verne made an exasperated sound. "Why couldn't you invent something useful? Like a transporter?"

Jules stood rod straight and looked indignant. "I _beg _your pardon, Verne. The science needed for a _transporter _is, at best, thirty years away – "

"God give me strength! Even when we were _kids _you could never admit when you were wrong, or that your idea was lousy! You've got more knowledge in your head than ten people put together, and the common sense of less than one!"

"I'm going to pretend that that was eighty-nine percent compliment and only eleven percent insult, Verne," Jules said as he disappeared towards the back door. "I would suggest taking up meditation to alleviate the strain exhibited by that vein popping out of your forehead. In the meantime, however, I'm going to pack, and I suggest you do the same."


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8 – Is it the Future Yet?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>June 27th, Year Unknown<strong>_  
><em><strong>11:42am<strong>_

The warmth of the noon sun bouncing off of the street laid out in front of Doc and Marty seemed to send rippling waves of magnified heat up to meet them, making them both tug at their starched collars and fan themselves with the straw hats Doc had insisted they wear. After the curbside meeting with the cloying obese man, it was fairly obvious that the year was _not _1911, and Marty only really resented that fact because his 1911-accurate shoes were starting to irritate the hell out of him. Each step was an exercise in patience and fortitude as the flat, stiff shoes tore at his heel. Nevertheless, the pair continued their slow trek south towards West Orange, neither sure of what they would find when they got there.

"We gotta be getting close to the city limits, Doc," Marty noted, throwing a few suspicious glances around them. He never liked walking into a situation where he and Doc were the only ones who didn't know what was going on – it made for some nasty surprises over the years. "We've been walking for hours but I don't hear a city or see it. What if it isn't there anymore? What if – what if there was a war or a plague or something in the future and the city isn't _there _anymore?"

"Very unlikely. To completely wipe out a city the size of West Orange would take either all-out war, a nuclear meltdown, or an epidemic of disease so virulent as to render this part of the nation uninhabitable for several decades at the very least, Marty," Doc postulated. "And seeing as how that man drove in a _convertible _in the open air without any sort of apparent protective mask, I'd have to say that those possibilities are, at the very least, highly improbable. Of course, by 2015, cars will mostly have had the _hover _conversion, at least in the future Earth timelines we've visited, so I am willing to bet we're somewhere in between the years of 1998 and 2015." He licked his lips. "No, I think we'll find that West Orange is still a populated city."

Marty continued to walk for a few moments before asking, "What the hell do you suppose an iPhone is?"

Doc returned his question with a shrug. "It appeared to be some sort of all-purpose communication device. Perhaps it is the descendant of mobile telephones of our time. With a few additional capabilities, of course."

"And he said his radio was _satellite," _Marty continued to muse. "You think people in this time use satellites to get a radio signal?"

"Perhaps terrestrial radio is no longer a feasible option if the airwaves are dominated by _iPhones _and their ilk," Doc mused. He pursed his lips anxiously. "What year could it _possibly _be, Marty? How far forward have we _gone?" _

"Beats me," Marty said. They continued to walk for another ten minutes or so when finally, as though their prayers had been answered, a block of houses rose on the horizon.

"Look Marty!" Doc gestured to a road leading off the one they were on, spotted with dilapidated looking homes that may have once been part of a prosperous suburb. "Edison commissioned entire neighborhoods to be built for his workers, even going so far as to plan the architecture for certain models of homes. He took a tip from Ford, Marty, and had the houses built almost in an assembly-line type process – a forerunner to tract housing in _our _time."

Marty was only half-listening to Doc as he plopped down on the side of the road and finally tore his left shoe off, unable to stand the biting pain anymore. "Those houses don't look old enough for that. Maybe we're only a few years in the future, you know?"

Doc seemed to scowl slightly at the sight of Marty's foot. "Marty, you can't walk into town shoe-less. We can't attract any attention."

Marty gave Doc a flat look born of the heat and a painful foot. "We're dressed like we belong in a Gershwin musical, Doc. We're going to attract attention whether we're trying or not."

"That _damn _train," Doc muttered, patting at his vintage clothes as though they might transform into something more period-accurate if only he was annoyed enough. He shook his head. "Forget it. We can't do this, Marty. We can't go into town like this. It's just too dangerous – too much can go wrong."

Marty mopped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "Then what do we do?"

Doc began to pace, his head down and his hands on his hips. "We _have _to find the current year so that I can determine what replacement parts are available for the train. But there _must_ be a way to ascertain the year without arousing the suspicion that would undoubtedly arise with our presence in the city. Think. _Think, _Marty. What could tell us the year?"

Marty's sight landed on the mailbox of one of the houses down the road. A thought struck him. "The mail! A piece of metered mail would have a time stamp on it!"

"Excellent!" Doc cried happily. "You go and find a piece of mail in one of those mailboxes and – "

"Wait, wait – how did I get elected for the job?"

"One could argue that your clothes are as a result of a fad, a frivolity of youth – "

"Youth! I'm nearly thirty," Marty said, which immediately ruined the upbeat mood that his idea about the mail had made.

Doc patted him on the shoulder brusquely in an effort to cheer him. "When you get to be my age, thirty sounds pretty damn good. Go on, Marty. Once we know what year we're in, we'll be able to make a plan to get back to our _own _time."

Marty jogged over to a mailbox and pulled out the first piece of mail his shaking hand touched and ran back through the thicket of bushes where Doc was waiting. A faded time stamp on the envelope read _June 27__th__, 2011. _

"Off by a hundred years! That _damned _train!" Doc repeated, throwing the envelope to the ground. "Well! I don't think we'll find Thomas Edison around here _these _days!"

"And Emily Roberts of Concordia Lane will never get her electric bill," Marty noted as the envelope became wet with the mud it had been thrown in. "I say we go back to the train and head home, Doc. I've had enough excitement for one day. I've got a lot of packing to do at home, and – "

"Marty, I don't think you understand the situation we're in," Doc interrupted, his face tightened in consternation. "As of right now, I'm not even sure how we'll get back to 1998_._"

Marty tried valiantly to read Doc's expression but found his friend's look inscrutable. A small note of worry crept into his voice. "What do you mean? We can get back, can't we? Sure, the train made a little noise during the trip, but it can't be anything major, right?"

Doc stuck his hands in his coat pockets and averted eye contact with Marty. "I don't want to unduly worry you, Marty," he began. Marty ran a hand through his hair; sentences that started like that coming from Doc always _did _worry him. "But if my experience in being sent back to 1885 was any indication, the time circuits might have sustained serious damage, as indicated by the damned worrisome _noises _that train made - "

"Noises! Doc, we gotta come up with a better reason than the _noises." _Marty sighed, nearly exasperated. "We can't be stuck here. I don't want to lose thirteen years of my life!"

_"Nil desperandum_, Marty," Doc said. "If science has taught us nothing else, it's that there is a solution to every problem. We must _find _that solution."

"Yeah, well, there doesn't look to be any lightning storms on the way," Marty commented. He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, as was Doc, until his face lit up and he clapped his hands together. "Doc! Let's just find your 2011 counterpart, eh? _He _can help us! _He'd _have the parts you need!"

Doc was already shaking his head partway through Marty's epiphany. "Absolutely not! Marty, look." He leveled his gaze at the younger man. "We were lucky in the past. _Lucky. _We could have irreparably damaged the timeline if just _one detail _had gone wrong." He heaved a sigh. "Maybe it's old age, Marty, but I don't want to take those kinds of risks anymore. Plus, what if I don't live to see 2011 in my own timeline? There would _be _no counterpart!"

"What about Jules? Verne? Hell, a 2011 _Marty?" _

"No!" Doc burst. "I will not rope my sons into this, and I won't rope your future self into it either. We, as 1998 counterparts, have _no business _interfering in their lives. It's simply too dangerous!"

"Doc," Marty said firmly. "If we don't get out of this now, I won't _have _a 2011 counterpart."

Doc began to pace in the middle of the road, thinking hard with one hand on his lip and the other on his hip. "I _do _have a few replacement parts on board the time train, Marty. It's possible that a repair job could be done right here in 2011, a _patch job _just good enough to get us back to 1998." He stopped and gazed at Marty. "I can't make any guarantees, but if you'll help me, it might just work."

"Of course," Marty agreed immediately. "I'll always help you with whatever you need, or whatever Jules and Verne need, or what Clara needs. You guys...well, you're family. You know that."

Doc clapped Marty on the shoulder affectionately and gave him a small smile. "I know. You're a good friend Marty. Whether it's 1955, 1985, 1998 or 2011 - you'll _always _be a good friend." His smile grew wider. "Let's get to work."


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9 – Road Trip_

* * *

><p><strong>June 23<strong>**rd**** 2011 **

**1:30pm  
><strong>  
>Marty only had to mention Doc's Brown name for Jennifer to understand everything she needed to know about her husband taking an unplanned journey. It certainly wasn't the first time, but she'd always assumed such journeys would stop once the time machine was dismantled, or at the very least after Doc Brown's death. But somehow, the lack of both a time machine and a Dr. Brown didn't seem to put an end to the instances when Marty got entangled in a dilemma having to do with the Browns.<p>

He'd burst through the front door at home, made a beeline to the cabinet where they kept important documents, and began riffling through the file folders inside. "I gotta find the date that we closed on this house," was all the more information she got when she questioned him. A moment later, he yanked one file folder from the cabinet triumphantly, licked his fingertip and started flipping through the stack of papers neither one of them had paid much attention to since the day they received them at the mortgage broker's office. He made an "ah-ha!" noise as his finger thumped on a date below his signature on one page. "June 29th!" he cried, shaking the paper in his fist as though it were a winning lottery ticket. "We closed on this house on June 29th! That means Doc and I were in New Jersey on June 27th!"

"Good to know," she said, leaning on the countertop. "But why does it matter?"

"Because the only chance we have to catch Doc Brown is two days before the day and the month when we signed the closing papers," Marty answered enigmatically, absorbed in throwing all the papers back into the folder and stuffing it messily back into the cabinet. He began to bound up the stairs before he stopped and realized his wife was still waiting for an answer.

"I've got to take a little trip with Jules and Verne, but Jen, I _promise _I'll explain everything when I get back," he dutifully pledged, inching his way up the stairs while trying to sound as sincere as possible. She arched an eyebrow but waved him away; anything having to do with the Brown family usually meant that she wouldn't see Marty for a few days, and that when she did, he'd have a hell of a story to tell her.

Not five minutes later, Marty jogged down the steps quickly (secretly proud that as a forty-three year old he was still as fleet-footed as he had been twenty-five years ago), kissed a somewhat resigned Jennifer on the cheek, and bolted to his car. A few minutes later as he pulled in the Brown's back driveway, he caught sight of an irate-looking Verne throwing duffel bags and a dozen of what looked like cracked, old brown suitcases into the back of his car, all the while yelling at someone, who Marty realized in an instant was Jules, looking equally as irate and standing near the front of the car.

"- this is California!" Verne was shouting as Marty jumped out of his car. "How the hell do you get anywhere without a _car? _The old homestead isn't exactly in the center of town."

"The way you get anything else in California, Verne. I _pay."_

Incredulous, Verne turned to his brother with a dubious expression. "You mean to tell me that for all these years you've been _paying _someone to drive you around?"

"It isn't often necessary," Jules answered somewhat defensively. He picked a piece of non-existent lint off his cuff fastidiously and frowned. "With the advent of the internet, I am able to supply myself with most of my material needs easily simply by ordering them. It is quite rare that I require something which I cannot obtain online or that I cannot fabricate myself."

Verne shook his head. "You used to drive. I _remember _you driving. You drove like a little old blind lady, but still, you _drove."_

Marty ran a quick hand through his hair as he came to two important realizations: One, that Jules' official status as a potential security threat apparently continued unabated and two, they'd be making the transcontinental trip stuffed into Verne's SUV. "Can we at least wait until we're out of Hill Valley before you guys start?" he said in an exasperated voice.

"Marty!" Verne swiveled around to face him with an eager look. "Did you find the date you and Dad were in New Jersey?"

"Yeah, right here - June 27th," Marty said, showing them his palm where he'd scribbled the date.

"June _27th? _It's June 23rd and we've already lost most of today! That only gives us three days to drive across the country!" Verne exclaimed, veins again standing out against his forehead, much to Jules' consternation.

"Right. So I suggest we start out right away," Marty said sensibly as he threw his own small bag into the back of the car and slammed the hatch.

"The tank's almost empty, and I'm _not _gonna be the one paying for the first fill up," Verne declared as he climbed into the driver's seat.

Jules brought himself up to his full height and groaned. "I suggest we depart immediately, gentleman, and agree upon a fuel distribution budget on the way."

"First sensible thing you've said all day," Verne remarked as Marty threw himself into the backseat and Jules rode shotgun. "Now, we've only got three days to get there, so no stopping unless absolutely necessary, right? If we stop for too long, we aren't going to make it."

"Yet again, your observational skills astound me," Jules countered sarcastically, buckling his seatbelt as Verne fired up the engine.

"Really! Then tell me why you needed all those suitcases which seemed to weigh about a thousand pounds each, because _that _seems to elude me!"

"Because some of us prefer to wear clean undergarments everyday!" the older brother shot back. "I still remember that _atrocious _little 'tip' you imparted to me before leaving for college. Despite your protests Verne, turning your underwear inside out to avoid doing laundry - "

"I maintain that that is a _survival _skill - "

"It's repulsive is what it is! Made all the worse for the fact that our room always seemed to be _littered _with your underwear - "

"Maybe I was too busy with _having a life _to pick them up!"

"Please! As I recall, you seemed to spend _most _of your adolescence listening to music that would make a gas station toilet vomit in disgust and trying to hide lewd magazines under your mattress. I _still _occasionally find those things hiding in the most unpredictable of places - I could make a _fortune _from the vintage collection of pornographic magazines hiding in all four corners of the house!"

"Just because I was a normal teenager - "

_"Normal? _I refuse to believe that the definition of 'normal' has degraded so far as to include a teenager whose favorite hobby was seeing how much peanut butter would fit in his mouth as qualifying for _normal." _

"Jules, you wouldn't know normal if it pulled down your pants and slapped your ass with a wet towel. Normal! This from the guy who once asked for a particle accelerator for Christmas!"

"Enough!" Marty shouted. "Look, we've got a long way to go, right? Turn on some tunes and let's just all shut up for a while."

Quiet reigned for close to twenty minutes with the only sounds being the radio and the roar of the semis as they passed on the crowded highway. Before long, however, Verne's stomach reminded him that he'd never gotten to eat that sandwich Marty brought before their collective near-death experience.

"I'm starvin'," he declared. "Anyone else hungry?"

His question was met with silence for close to a minute before Marty admitted, "I guess we've got a long night ahead of us. Might be a good idea."

"Now you're talking!" Verne said as he immediately swerved into the exit lane, eliciting honking from other cars, and practically hit all of the traffic cones running along the side of the exit ramp as they descended into the small town of Stilesville.

"And you claim _I _drive like a sightless individual," Jules muttered, hanging onto the dashboard as they bumped along.

"Hey, a Smiley's!" Verne said happily as a fast-food joint appeared on their right. He pulled into the parking lot. "I take my kids to Smiley's in Center City sometimes. They've got those hideous plastic playgrounds kids love so much. Good fries, though."

"Artificially colored processed sustenance. My favorite," Jules said with a yawn as they pulled into a parking spot.

"Lighten up, Jules," said Marty with a shrug. "Even your dad didn't mind a greasy burger now and then."

The blonde teenaged cashier gave the three of them a bright grin that bordered on manic and chirped, "Welcome to Smiley's! What can I make for you?"

"I don't trust anyone that cheerful," Jules whispered to Verne. "If evolutionary behavioral psychology has taught us nothing else - "

"Don't get scholarly with me," Verne hissed back. "Just _order _something."

"Fine," Jules whispered dejectedly. He straightened up and declared, "I'll have a pustulous sack of oval-shaped grease covered with a piece of square-shaped processed whey and oil on a practically calcified composite of wood pulp extract containing more salt than my prehistoric ancestors ate in a lifetime."

"He'll have a cheeseburger," Verne said pointedly to the teenage cashier at the counter.

While Marty and Verne ordered their food and waited at the counter, Jules ventured out into the dining area. Frantic-looking cartoon characters holding glorified illustrations of Smiley's burgers plastered the walls and fake ferns hung apathetically from the ceiling. Napkins littered the floor where children ran amok, oblivious to other customers trying to make their way down the aisles towards plastic booths that appeared permanently sticky. Jules began to feel anxious and his palms began to sweat; he was unsure how exactly he would force food down his throat in such an environment. Not only did he not do well in environments crowded with loud people, but his inner germaphobe was practically shrieking in terror at the thought of the number of bacterial microbes roaming among him. He had almost decided to make his apologies to Marty and Verne and wait for them in the car when he felt a tug on his belt loop.

"Hi Uncle Jules!" a familiar voice exclaimed happily.

Jules looked down to find a fresh-faced kid with blond hair looking back up at him while sipping sloppily from a soda. "A - Alex?" he stammered in a confused tone. "What are you doing here?"

Alex, the five year old middle son of Verne, gave him a gap-toothed grin. "We's mouse hunting!" he cried.

Not entirely sure that such a thing was impossible given the state of the restaurant, Jules nevertheless crouched down to Alex's eye level (careful not to touch his knee on the floor) and asked, "Where is your mother?"

"She's over there!" Alex pointed to the back of the restaurant, where Margo, Verne's soon-to-be ex-wife, did indeed sit at a table with she and Verne's two other children, Jake and Sunny. Before he could refuse, Alex was pulling Jules by the hand over towards the table and chattering loudly about a toy truck he'd gotten in his kid's meal, and how he was planning on testing its mechanical soundness by throwing it repeatedly down the stairs when they got home.

" - an' if it don't break, then I know where Daddy keeps his hammer. Momma, look! Uncle Jules!" Alex squawked triumphantly, now holding Jules by his shirt as if presenting him to an awe-struck audience.

Margo Brown, a small brunette with large green eyes, turned and a look of confusion crossed her face as Jules squirmed uncomfortably. "Jules, what - "

"Margo, I feel it's only fair to warn you - "

" - what are you doing here? I didn't - "

" - that I'm here with Verne, and that - "

" - realize - _Verne? _Why are you - "

" - it's a complicated arrangement of catalysts that have necessitated this journey - "

"Alex!" Verne called from behind Jules, hurrying forward to his son and swooping him up. His eyes then landed on the rest of his family, who looked back at him with an equally shocked expression. "What're you you all doing in Stilesville?" he asked in a much weaker voice than he would have liked.

"Momma's looking at houses," Alex stated matter-of-factly as he buried himself in Verne's shoulder. "When you comin' home, Daddy?"

Verne's heart sank. "I - uh, I don't know yet, kiddo," he answered honestly. "But you guys are a sight for sore eyes, that's for sure."

"Got a truck!" Alex proclaimed as he held a small plastic truck up for his father to see. "Momma got us fun meal!"

The little toy, the kind sold by the millions with kids meals, shimmered in the fluorescent lighting. A daub of ketchup crowned its front wheels. "That's a cool truck," Verne managed with a slight grimace, a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach riling up inside of him as he realized he'd give anything in the world for things to go back the way they were before; long Saturdays, just like this one, spent playing with the kids and spoiling them with small pleasures like a cheap plastic toy at the bottom of a kids meal box. He ran a hand through his son's hair before swallowing and mustering up the courage to give a questioning look to Margo. "Margo? Is this true? You're looking at houses in Stilesville?" He made a slightly exasperated sound. "I thought we both agreed to stay in Center City!"

"I'm only looking," Margo explained with a shrug and a sympathetic look at Verne; it didn't look like he'd slept in days. "Look, we'd still be pretty close if you were in Center City and I was in Stilesville. Not even a half an hour apart. My sister lives in Stilesville, and I want to be close to her."

"And I want to be close to _my kids!" _Verne burst. A few customers gave him disapproving glances and he quieted down. "She may be the aunt, but _I _am the father. I outrank her!" he whispered fiercely.

By that time, Jules had found Marty sitting quietly in a booth across the restaurant from Verne and his family, his legs stretched out ahead of him as he sat with his back to the wall and rolling a toothpick in his mouth. Marty held up a bag with the Smiley's logo plastered on the side. "Thought it best to get dinner to go," he said.

"Yes," Jules said sagely, sticking his hands in his pockets. "This encounter may subdue even Verne's prodigious appetite."

Verne and Margo exchanged fierce, quiet words for close to five minutes before Verne kissed each of his children, and then made a motion towards the door directed at Jules and Marty as he walked swiftly back out towards the car. Verne threw himself into the backseat of the car and called out the window in a shaky voice, "Marty! Your turn to drive!"

A moment later, Marty obliged and slid into the driver seat with Jules sitting in the passenger's seat next to him.

"Are we not dining with your family, Verne?" Jules asked.

"What do _you _think, Jules?" Verne demanded flatly. "There's nothing more goddamned _uncomfortable _in this world than being in a place where you're not exactly welcome, but the person is too polite to tell you to go away, right? It's like when you get invited to a party only because you're a friend of a friend of the host's. Or when you're road tripping and you stay with someone you've never met, but is the friend of your co-worker's cousin or something. They don't really want you there, but they're too nice to say 'no' and they don't want to upset their friend. That's how it is with me and Margo right now. That's how it's been for months. Whether it's our house or a fast food joint in the middle of nowhere, she doesn't want me there - but she loves the kids enough to _not _tell me to go away, even though I _know _that's what she'd like to do. So, Jules, _no, _we won't be dining with my family. After everything else that has happened this week, I just can't stand feeling like I'm only being tolerated for a false sense of harmony." He sighed. "And anyway, nothing like the open road to ease a broken heart, right?"

"I believe you're thinking of effervescents and bed rest," Jules piped up helpfully from the front.

"Jules, shut up, man."


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10 – The Transportation History of New Jersey_

* * *

><p><em><strong>June 27th 2011<strong>_  
><em><strong>1998 Counterparts<strong>_

Doc and Marty arrived back at the time train a couple of hours later after hitching a ride with a questionable looking trucker headed in the general direction of the forest. They'd learned from the trucker that the forest was a part of a kind of nature preserve, and for that they were thankful - perhaps it meant they'd be away from prying eyes while they tried to make repairs to a time machine that might very well never run again.

For his part, Marty was trying to stay calm and positive, and not to think _too _much about what not being able to get back to 1998 might mean. After all, there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do about it - either they had the parts they needed, or they didn't. Either they could fix it, or they couldn't.

Either Jennifer wouldn't see him again for thirteen years, or - well, he couldn't really think of a good answer for that. He hoped that he'd bought enough packing tape before he left.

His feet ached and his mouth thirsted for water as he crashed through yet another patch of brambles, his period-accurate 1911 shoes doing very little to make the trek easier, and threw a glance behind him, where Doc struggled through in much the same way, a pained look on his face that meant he was concentrating deeply. Marty could almost feel the weight of Doc's thoughts on his own shoulders.

And weighty the thoughts _were _to Doc's mind. Here he'd gone and gotten Marty into yet more one spot of real trouble, one that might mean he'd lose out on thirteen years of his family's life and his own. He'd already dragged Marty to a new 1985 timeline, meaning Marty had had to get used to the new personalities of his family, and despite Marty's stoic reaction to the situation, Doc knew it couldn't have been without its problems. How could it have been? When a person spends 17 years growing up in one family only to be thrust into what essentially amounted to a new one - the adjustment couldn't have been easy, even _if _his "new" family was an improvement, personality wise, over the old one.

He couldn't help but think of what the time machine(s) had meant for his _own _small family. Well he understood the implications for Clara, Jules and Verne, what years spent in all different times and places had done to impact them. He was immensely proud of all of them, and thought of them all as were wonderful people, but he knew what sacrifices had been borne in the wake of his scientific inventions. He knew that was the reason Clara never really felt at home in the 1990's, even if she'd done her best to adjust. He knew that was probably why Jules always had such a hard time making friends, and why Verne was too quick to jump into friendships and relationships that weren't always the healthiest choices for him. While he understood that "normal" was relative and everyone had their own emotional baggage to carry, he sometimes wondered what his _own _baggage - his _drive _to fulfill his own dreams and ambitions, and drag the family along for the ride - had meant for Clara, Jules, Verne, and even Marty and Jennifer.

He hoped that when all was said and done, when he was nearing the end of his life, he could still look back on it all with pride of a job well done.

"Finally!" Marty cried ahead of him as the outline of the time train came into view. They both sprinted the last few hundred yards towards the train, and Doc immediately threw the compartment door open and dove inside, beginning to pick through the contents of the storage compartment to get the needed parts for repair. Marty, feeling it was perhaps best to let Doc attend to that sort of thing (as he had _no _idea what parts one needed to repair a time machine), sat on the steps of the train, wiping his brow in the late afternoon sun. He wasn't sure how much manual labor he _could _pull off once he got back to the morning of June 27th, 1998, as he was now exhausted from the day's actions and the thought of hefting heavy boxes around made him want to scream.

His breath caught in his throat for a moment and he swallowed hard. _Forget how tired I am, _he thought to himself. _I'd happily load a hundred moving trucks single-handedly if it meant we got home safely. _

Doc suddenly reappeared in the engine room bearing a few power tools, and set to work removing the cover of the control panel, muttering curses under his breath. Marty stood and leaned in the doorway.

"Anything you want me to do, Doc?" he asked.

"Not yet, Marty, but stick close by," Doc instructed. The corner of Marty's mouth twitched into a small smile, having heard that same familiar phrase for years whenever he was helping Doc with some mechanical conundrum.

Marty descended the steps to the ground languidly, hands in pockets, and inhaled deeply. All things considered, a forest was a nice change from some of the other places he'd found himself traveling with the Browns: the crowded Roman streets of two millennia ago, vast swamplands of the Jurassic period, battlefields of wars that had long ago been won or lost. He crossed his arms across his chest, enjoying the sun on his face, but jumped back suddenly when he saw the movement of red and yellow in the bushes a hundred yards ahead of him.

"We're _lost, _I'm tellin' ya!" came a bawling shout as a man dressed in red shorts, yellow polo shirt, white socks pulled up to his knees and white sneakers emerged from the brush. "And I can't get a goddamn signal on the GPS out here, all these damn trees, I - " The man stopped mid-sentence when he caught sight of the train before him. "Holy shhh - Marge! Marge, c'mere! You gotta _see _this!"

"Oh, dammit," Marty muttered, doing a poor job of hiding behind one of the train's massive wheels.

A moment later, a large woman followed by a kid of about ten years, who was wearing a deep scowl, materialized from out of the shadows thrown by the trees. Marge, with a tightly-curled hairdo that resembled shag carpeting and large sunglasses crowning her face, made a surprised yap but nevertheless immediately held up a small silver box and clicked a button.

"Oh yeah," she said, self-satisfied with a nod. "That's a good one. Mark, get up there by that train. Go on. We'll make it our Christmas card."

"Do I _hafta?" _whined the young boy, his arms flopping at his sides in his best display of apathy.

"Do as your mother says," the man, who Marty could only assume to be the father, demanded as he continued to gaze in awe at the train. He seemed to suddenly shake free of his reverie and caught sight of Marty hunched down by the wheels. The man immediately strode forward, hand extended. "Well hiya!" he called, grinning. "Sam Chapel, nice to meet you!"

Not having any choice, Marty set his jaw and shook the man's hand as firmly as he could. "Nice to meet you," he managed.

"Got a name?"

"Uh...Thomas," Marty stammered. "Thomas Edison...ford. Thomas Edisonford."

"Edisonford?" Sam guffawed. "Well what are you then, an Edison or a Ford? Either way, names like that around here are made of money, aren't they?"

"Ah, I wouldn't - I wouldn't know," Marty spluttered. Even after all of the years he'd traveled with Doc, he'd gotten no better at aliases and backstories. "I'm just an Edisonford. From...California."

"This ain't a _real _train, you know," Mark yammered as he hung off the front of the train. _"Real _trains need _tracks." _

"What is this thing, anyway?" Marge inquired, popping her gum. "What's it doin' way out here?"

"It's a public history display," Doc's voice sounded behind them, as he stepped down off the train. "Park service is trying something new, you know. Putting exhibits _outside _of a museum."

"Yeah, that's right," Marty chimed in quickly, picking up the direction of Doc's explanation immediately. "We're historical reinactors. Period accurate to 1911." He gave them a slight nod as though this should impress them, and he was rewarded when the family certainly looked as though they were. "We do shows every day at ten, one, three and four. We do interactive presentations about the transportation history of New Jersey."

Doc stood with his hands clasped in front of him and nodded. "We're funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This week we're here, next week we'll be in...uh, another…fine town in New Jersey."

"How do you _move _it, though?" Marge demanded. She adjusted the sunglasses on her nose. "It looks...it almost looks like a _real _train!"

"It _is _fully operational," Doc said as Marty resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Like most people, Doc relished the opportunity to humbly brag about his toys - as much as he could to strangers who mustn't know about time travel, anyway. "It can run along standard train tracks just like any other train. For our purposes though, we rely on large semis, of course."

"Must be a _huge _semi," Sam said in a voice that betrayed his disbelief.

"It is," Marty interjected quickly. "It's a - a - twenty-six wheeler."

"Twenty-six? But there's no - "

"Custom built, of course." Marty did his best at a smile.

Marge suddenly slapped Sam's shoulder. "See, what'd I tell you? Nothin' wrong with spending an afternoon in a park, you could _learn _something - "

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said curtly. "A train in the forest. Real educational. Never heard of such a thing. Mark, get off of that wheel. C'mon, we gotta go."

Marty and Doc watched the family go, and Marty breathed a sigh of relief. "That was close. Good thinking Doc."

"Well, it isn't the first time that's worked," Doc admitted. "People will believe _anybody _who looks like they know what they're talking about. The Milgram Experiment of early 1960's proved it. But unfortunately, we've got a bigger problem than hikers."

Marty turned to him, a concerned look playing across his features. "Don't tell me. We don't have the right parts?"

Doc pulled a rag out of his back pocket and ran it along his face tiredly. "Most of the circuit board needs to be replaced but I don't have a spare one on board. I have a feeling that the older of my offspring probably absconded with it to build God-knows-what."

Marty's face fell. "Then what are we going to do?" He watched Doc begin to pace nervously, and the lump immediately returned to Marty's throat. "Doc, we have a _plan _or something, right? Some sort of contingency tactic? Or at the very least, a creative idea?"

"Marty, I told you that nothing is impossible, and I meant it," Doc told him flatly. He stared hard into the distance. _"Something _will turn up. I can _feel _it."


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11 – And So the Journey Continues_

* * *

><p><strong>June 26<strong>**th**** – 27****th****, 2011**

**2011 Counterparts**

They crossed the border into Pennsylvania by nine that evening, and by nine-thirty were encroaching upon Pittsburgh. Marty looked somewhat longingly at the exit sign that would take them through Pittsburgh, but didn't turn; it felt as though his curiosity was almost getting the better of him after what seemed like the endless ride from California that had so far been full of frustrations, quarreling brothers, and the anxiety stemming from not knowing if a scenario would work out the way they needed it to. At the very least, they were running ahead of schedule, and would arrive in West Orange well in plenty of time to meet up with the 1998 versions of himself and Doc.

The lights lining the highway flashed the interior of the car rhythmically as they sped on. Marty happened to glance over at Jules as the light hit his face and just for a moment, Marty could see Doc in him. He looked quickly back to the road, trying to push back difficult memories of one of the last conversations he'd had with the Doc about a week before his death.

Marty had come over to drop off some medication he'd picked up for Doc at the pharmacy. The pharmacist had known both Marty and the Brown family for so many years that it wasn't at all unusual for Marty to pick up something for Doc if it was convenient, and Marty never minded; it gave both he and Doc a good excuse to talk for an hour or so, catching up on one another's lives and reminiscing on some of their adventures.

Doc had pulled three bottles of pills out of the crinkly white pharmacy bag and tsked disapprovingly. "Marty, eventually a man lives long enough to wonder if it's really in good taste for him to still be kicking around in the mortal realm."

"The man who has a Big Mouth Billy Bass hanging in his garage is talking about good taste?"

Doc ignored him but smirked. "Look at these pills. I've got more pills than I do damns about living to be ancient. Immortality won't come from a computer or a god, Marty. It'll come from these damn _pills. _Everlasting life, available at a pharmacy near you. I could patent that catchphrase and retire."

"You'll never retire. That's why you're the Doc, Doc."

Doc continued to study the pill bottles thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "I need you to promise me something, Marty."

Marty, who'd picked up a mechanical gizmo while Doc had been talking and examined it closely until a tiny arm shot out and tried to grab his nose, slammed the piece back on the work table and nodded innocently. "Sure, Doc. Anything."

"I need you to keep an eye on Jules and Verne when I'm gone. Now look!" he'd proclaimed in that _I'm-not-crazy _way of his, pointing a finger at Marty. "They're grown men, Marty, but I'm still their father and I still worry about them. You've got your own family to look after, but don't forget about this one. Especially Jules. He's liable to turn into one of those hermits living off dried lima beans and trying to invent a device to communicate with domestic felines if he doesn't have any human contact."

Marty laughed. "C'mon, Doc, he isn't that bad. Have a little faith."

"I know, I know," Doc said, waving him away. "I love both of them, very much! More than life itself, and I'd gladly give mine for either one of theirs, same as you would for your children. But Jules gets wrapped up in the ideas in his head far more than Verney ever did. Verney's trouble is that he rushes into things headlong, and then is surprised when things fall apart. He sometimes doesn't think enough, and Jules sometimes thinks _too _much." Doc shook his head in amazement. "They grew up in the same house, with the same parents, and even in the same room. And yet there are days when I swear those two came out of completely different wombs altogether!"

Marty shrugged and crossed his arms. "Jimmy and Robin are the same way. Robin tutored Jim in high school physics while she was still in sixth grade, but he was the one who had to teach her how to catch a ball so she wouldn't flunk gym class. Of course, her success in physics was mainly down to _your _tutoring of her, but still. You can never tell."

"Just look in on Jules and Verne once in a while, Marty. Make sure they're all right," Doc urged, as he sat tiredly on a stool in the lab. "I'll feel better about going if I know someone I trust is always there to lend them a hand if they ever need it. And someone to give them hell if that they know that's what I would have done."

"Doc, look, you're going to be around to give them hell for a long time yet," Marty said in what he hoped was a bright tone. "And don't sweat it. Why wouldn't I be around for Jules and Verne? They're practically my brothers, right?"

Doc smiled. "Pills can't keep me alive forever, Marty. Not yet. And I wouldn't want them to, even if they could. Death is the last great adventure for a scientist. It's just too bad I can only perform the experiment once."

Marty squirmed a little; he hated talking about this sort of stuff with Doc. "Well, just don't go rushing towards that big laboratory in the sky quite yet, all right Doc?"

Ten days later, Marty attended Doc's funeral.

Marty squirmed in the car seat, mimicking his motions from that conversation. To think that he'd already said goodbye to Doc, already watched him being lowered into the ground, and already made peace with the fact that his dearest friend was no more, to now find himself speeding towards a place and a time when Doc would suddenly appear out of the sky healthy and exuberant as ever...it made Marty shiver slightly.

He threw a glance to Jules and Verne and noted without surprise that they were both still fast asleep. He caught sight of a trickle of drool shimmering from the side of Verne's mouth just as Verne snorted in his sleep and Marty cringed. "Jesus, no wonder Clara used to call him her 'little piggy'," he muttered to himself, bringing his gaze back to the dash. The gas tank was steadily falling under the quarter-tank mark and the car was pushing towards the border, where little more than deserted highway and darkness was there to greet them until dawn broke in several hours. With a languid sigh that was half-relief and half-weariness, Marty spotted a gas station ahead and decided to take the opportunity to fill up the gas tank, take a leak and maybe stock up on some energy drinks for the drive ahead. He could settle up with Jules and Verne later.

He stepped into the cool night air gratefully, as though it were made just for his pleasure after being cooped up in a car for the better part of the day. After glancing at his watch and finding it to still be on the outer fringes of what could be called a 'respectable hour', he called Jennifer while waiting for the gas tank to fill and let her know that he was all right, Jules and Verne were all right, and that he'd keep her updated. Hanging up and looking across the hilly terrain that surrounded them, he took an odd measure of comfort in knowing that he was married to perhaps the only person on earth who wouldn't demand an immediate explanation of his hasty departure and the scant reasoning for it. But it had always been that way with Jennifer - an absolute trust, an unbreakable bond, and an unspoken understanding. All he'd ever wanted was to be good enough to deserve it.

The gas station was of newer construction, one of the bright and shiny new models of gasoline stations that only half existed for the sake of gas; prepacked meals, designed to eat on the road, sat before any traveler that wandered in, as well as a veritable grocery store and toy emporium, filled with everything from cat food and Windex to stuffed animals and glue. Marty finished in the restroom and grabbed a small basket, preparing to do a little shopping.

"How are ya," he mumbled half-heartedly with a nod to the lone clerk behind the counter, a mammoth in a bright red shirt and name-tag. "Nice night out there."

"About like any other night," the clerk answered with a shrug. He shifted his weight slightly; Marty was his first customer in close to an hour and he wasn't above making some chitchat for the sake of alleviating boredom and loneliness. "Going far?"

"New Jersey, actually," Marty called back to the clerk as he grabbed two cold energy drinks from the back refrigerator case, then made his way to the candy aisle, throwing in a Snickers bar for himself and a few Hershey bars for Verne, who loved them.

"You got a long way to go."

"Hm? Oh. Oh, yeah, well actually, I'm on my way to see a - a friend," Marty stammered, slowly but truthfully, as he stuck a plastic cup under the hot coffee dispenser and waited for it to fill up. "Yeah. It'll be good to see him again," he said in a quiet voice, biting his lip slightly as he thought of what lay before them, unsure if it would even be enough to save them.

"It might not work," the clerk said.

"Well, we've got to at least try," Marty shot back quickly before he caught himself and looked over the clerk, who was pointing at the coffee machine.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Marty replied, running a hand through his hair.

"I meant the coffee machine. Give it a minute. Sometimes needs a minute to warm up."

Marty nodded, left his cup there, and began perusing the store. His eyes fell on a rack of cassette tapes at the end of one of the aisles. "I'll be damned. _There's _a blast from the past," he chuckled, picking up an AC/DC cassette tape. "Haven't seen a cassette for sale in years."

"Yeah, can ya beat that?" the clerk said derisively with a short laugh. "The owner has another station - an old Citgo about ten miles east of here - and keeps stock in the back. He ran across a box of cassettes been sitting in that place for prob'ly close to a decade and dragged 'em over here, thinkin' people would _buy _'em. They're just takin' up space, in _my _opinion."

Seeing that his coffee was only just then beginning to trickle out of the machine in a sad little stream, Marty picked through the tapes. He stopped his gaze landed on _Sports, _an old Huey Lewis and the News album. Cracking a grin, he tipped it out of the rack and scanned the tracks, memories flooding back. "Man, this used to be just about my favorite album," he said, more to himself than to the clerk. "I had this on vinyl and cassette for the longest time. Don't know what happened to either of them."

"Huey Lewis? Yeah, I remember them. Weren't too bad."

"They were great," Marty said, somewhat defensively. "Used to play in a band that was basically a glorified Huey Lewis cover band back in high school." He hesitated for a moment and then cupped the tape in his hand protectively. Having some tunes playing in the beat-up cassette deck in the car would help keep him awake, he figured. "What the hell. For nostalgia's sake."

"Good a reason as any," the clerk responded with another shrug.

His purchases made, Marty jogged back out to the car, put his coffee in the drink holder, threw the bag of junk food and caffeine in the back, and after noting that Jules and Verne were still dead to the world, slipped the tape in the cassette deck. The first track began to play softly on the speakers as Marty pulled out of the gas station and back onto the highway, his mind already back in Hill Valley in the mid-80's.

When he thought of the 80's, only three things came back to him immediately: Doc, Jennifer, and his room. It wasn't unusual for someone to have strong memories of his or her childhood room, or exactly what posters were on the wall or exactly what books were on the shelf, but Marty had the distinct prerogative of having had two childhood rooms that were different from each other while still being in the exact same place at the exact same time.

When Marty had finally returned home after his jaunts through time, he found himself inhabiting a house and a family that he, personally, had never been a part of - at least, not Marty McFly as he'd always been. The _other _Marty McFly had grown up in a family with a happy, confident, successful father and a happy, confident, successful mother, as opposed to _him, _who had grown up with the exact opposites of his "new" parents. All of his basic memories about his family were correct - he had a brother and a sister, he'd gone to Disney World when he was six, the small crack in his bedroom window came from a tumble he'd taken the first time he'd come home drunk - but as to the personalities of his "new" family...well, that was a whole other keg of beer. It had taken close to a year until he was entirely comfortable with his new situation. That wasn't to say that there weren't distinct advantages of his new life - these were many - but his family had more than once thrown him a questioning glance when he'd let slip with some factoid of his "old" family. His parents had grudgingly blamed adolescence or a bad memory, which Marty felt content with letting them believe, as it was a lot easier than explaining the truth. Neither had they ever voiced whatever similarities they'd noticed between he and Calvin Klein, if in fact they ever had noticed. It had occurred to Marty that since his parents had raised him, perhaps they were blind to those similarities, or maybe they believed that they had influenced Marty into displaying those similarities, as _they _now possessed those similarities imparted by Calvin Klein. Marty had spent a lot of time during those years trying not to think about it too much - there was too much that he knew he'd never be able to answer for.

But the music was and always had been exactly the same. Maybe that's why _Sports _had always been so important to him as a young adult; it was an old constant in an otherwise new universe.

He'd fought hard to fit into this new universe. _Doc _had fought hard for it too, in his own way. Which led him to wonder - just _why _was Jules risking all of it to make a new time machine? When had he gotten _that _idea? Jules had certainly never talked about missing travelling through time. He'd never spoken about historical mysteries he wanted to solve, or a longing to visit other times, nor had he ever shown a curiosity towards ancient questions with no modern answers. In other words, he'd never expressed any reasons for _wanting _to build a time machine.

It just didn't make sense.

The electric sounds of Huey Lewis kept him company through the night as he passed a whole lot of nothing. Marty finished his coffee and had gotten through one of the sickly-sweet energy drinks he'd picked up at the gas station before he saw the telltale signs of sunrise approaching. The land seemed to glow orange around him, and he couldn't decide if it was the muted hues of oncoming daylight or simply a side effect of the wired feeling courtesy of the caffeine, but he pulled into a rest stop at the border of some Pennsylvania town he hadn't ever heard of, and silently declared to himself that his driving shift was over, whether or not Jules and Verne were finished sleeping.

He got out of the car, stretched and scratched his sides, yawning into the early morning sun. Other drivers who had pulled into the rest stop seemed to be doing much the same; surreal nights passed behind the wheel of a speeding car made daylight seem almost intrusive on the thoughts of such wanderers.

On the far end of the parking lot sat a bench overlooking what appeared to be, for lack of a better term, a dirty stream of water, which appeared to widen on the horizon near a copse of trees. Marty made his way over to the bench, more to stretch his legs than anything, but sat gratefully overlooking the landscape nonetheless. His thoughts again drifted back to the strange quagmire of emotions he felt about his looming meeting with Doc and a younger version of himself, a self that was a relatively new father, a relatively new husband, and...well, cosmically speaking, a relatively new human at only 30 years of age.

"You think differently about yourself at that age," he said quietly to a group of birds that had gathered near the bench to peck at the ground. "You don't think you've got time to change things - you think it's all set in stone. This is my job, this is my family, this is my town, and it's never going to change. But it does." He sighed. "It does change."

Marty remembered sitting in the mortgage closing office, sweating slightly as his hand hovered over a blank line that only needed his scrawled signature to officially give him the title of "homeowner." He guessed that some people's lives only flashed before their eyes as they were dying, but his life had flashed through his mind as he had sat there in that uncomfortable plastic chair, an electric fan buzzing somewhere near his ear, Jennifer's purse making a slight rustling sound as she gripped it in her lap. A second later, as though through no action of his own, he looked down to find his signature there on the page.

_That signature was supposed to be the autograph of a rock star, _he remembered thinking to himself. _Fans were supposed to scream for it. Autograph collectors would pay for it. And here it is - just the ordinary signature of an ordinary guy who just bought thirty years' worth of debt. _It had felt like the last forfeit of those high school dreams that had started with a scratchy demo tape made in Johnny Clegg's garage.

And that was the guy Marty was going to see again in just a few hours.

He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. Why was he even thinking about this stuff? He had basically everything he'd ever wanted - he had Jennifer, he had the kids, he even had his own _recording studio _for Christ's sake.

So why did he suddenly feel as though he was second-guessing his entire life?


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter 12 – Tourist Money_

* * *

><p><strong>June 27<strong>**th****, 2011**

**1998 Counterparts**

"It _might _work," Doc said to Marty, after about an hour of ceaseless mutterings and scribbles on a piece of scrap paper that detailed a rough outline for a stop-gap solution to their problem. Doc scrutinized the scrawled numbers and rudimentary flow charts and frowned. "Stress on the _might." _

Marty nodded. "Might's good. Might's _great, _Doc." His face was now considerably calmer than it had been for most of the afternoon as he walked up and down the length of the carriage. "I mean it gives us a place to start, right?"

"Right, but we're going to need some money." Doc stood. "I've got plenty of early twentieth century cash. I've got pieces of eight, doubloons, Roman imperial coins and even a kind of credit card from the year 2271 with digitized money loaded onto it. But I don't have any 2011 money, Marty."

"1998 money will still work," Marty pointed out.

Doc nodded, gripping the railing above his head with both hands. "It would, except I didn't bring my wallet with me, not expecting to need it. Did you bring yours?"

Marty's face fell as he remembered his attire that morning; he obviously didn't carry his wallet around in his pajamas, and had left his wallet in his car - back in 1998. "Ah, no. No, I didn't."

"Well! All that means is that Thomas Edisonford - good one, by the way - will have to lead a talk on the transportation history of New Jersey to a group of enthralled hikers and tourists," Doc said, as though the matter was settled. Marty's expression turned dubious.

"Wait a minute Doc, I don't know a single damn thing about the transportation history of New Jersey. Hell, I've never even _been _to the East Coast before this." He shifted his weight. "How am I supposed to convince anyone I know anything about it?"

"The same way you convinced everyone you were Calvin Klein and Clint Eastwood, Marty." He patted him on the shoulders. "You'll do it because you don't have any other choice if we ever hope to get home. You're a teacher, remember? So pretend this is your classroom, and _teach. _Now look." He led Marty off the train and gestured to the south. "There's a campground not far from here, and where there's a campground, there's campers. Tell them there's a three o'clock show and then _make sure they come. _We'll charge five bucks a head and do it again at _four _o'clock. If we can raise a couple hundred bucks, we can buy the equipment I need in town. While you're off rounding up our audience, I'll get the site ready. And Marty!" Doc called, as Marty had already begun to walk away towards the camp ground. "Remember! If you put your mind to it, you can do _anything!" _

Marty couldn't help but give him a quick grin as he disappeared into the brush. Doc quickly gathered some branches, broke them into smaller pieces, made a primitive fire pit out of a patch cleared of grass and circled in stones, then quickly built a small fire. As soon as that was crackling invitingly, he retrieved a few items from the storage compartment - antique money roughly period to 1911, a few more clothes, a couple of books, a few more small props - and tried to create a small domestic scene outside of the train, as though someone had left all of those things on a train platform in the early 1900's. Lastly, he managed to drag a steamer trunk down the steps of the train and placed it in front of the fire; it was Victorian, a present to Clara shortly after their honeymoon, but it would do for some historically accurate decoration (not to mention a place to sit).

About that time, Doc began to hear voices approaching, with Marty's being the loudest. Doc immediately sat down on the steamer trunk and hurriedly dug an old-fashioned pipe out of the pile of "props" next to him, and pretended to smoke it. Approximately twenty people stumbled into the clearing, led by Marty who was shouting to them, "Right this way, please! That's right, get nice and close, there's room for everyone!"

Marty went around and neatly collected a fiver from everyone in the small audience as though he did it every day, all the time saying to himself, _Just do what Doc said, McFly, and imagine yourself at the front of the classroom. That's right. This audience is your class and today the lesson is on transportation. Right, transportation. Find something to say about it. Find __anything__ to say about it. _

And before he knew it, Marty was doing just that.

It was mostly bull and perhaps even some in his audience realized that, but Doc was right when he said that most people will listen to anyone who looks like they know what they're doing, and Marty was a master at pretending; he'd done it to convince his parents to get together in 1955, he'd done it to convince Mad Dog Tannen he was dead in 1885, and he was practically unmatched in the sheer number of fibs and half-truths he got away with in childhood. Somehow, pretending came to him naturally, and before he knew it, he'd spun a tale of the history of transportation in New Jersey for twenty minutes by using every last generalization that sounded vaguely correct, every made-up story of industrialists he could create, and every shred of high school history he could remember, when Doc finally stood up and moved to take over.

Marty sat down on the trunk with a thump in front of the fire as Doc began to wax philosophical about early trains, showing off the exterior of the time train itself as a perfect specimen of that time. Marty was impressed by Doc's knowledge; Doc seemed to know what every last bolt, screw and nail did and how it was connected together to create a working steam locomotive. Too tired to pay much attention, Marty instead began fanning himself with his hat, his mind wandering back to the life that awaited him in 1998.

Somehow, the issue of buying a house had riled up all of his old insecurities about his life and while he wouldn't change his family life, he wondered how different his life would have been if he'd pursued his music career more diligently than he had in the last decade or so. He didn't even know if that would matter to him in the future - was his 2011 doppleganger happy with his life? Did the decisions he'd made in, say, 1998 still mesh with the kind of guy he'd be in 2011?

And why the _hell _couldn't his kids stay off the damn Hoverboard?

"That concludes our program, ladies and gentleman," he heard Doc say loudly, tearing him from his own thoughts. Marty glanced at his watch and discovered with surprise that Doc had been talking for twenty minutes. "Thank you for taking this trip back in time with us, and be sure to tell your fellow campers that our next show starts in approximately twenty minutes! Good day to you all!"

As the audience petered out back into the forest from whence they came, Marty patted Doc on the back. "Good job, Doc. We made it."

_"And _made over a hundred bucks. I'll go round up some campers in the _north _campgrounds; you stay here."

"Sure thing."

He watched Doc stalk off and ran a hand over his face as he sat back down on the trunk, poking at the fire to bring it back to life. He continued to be lost in his own worries until the next group of campers arrived shortly thereafter; he stumbled through another false soliloquy about a subject he had no knowledge of and no interest in, took money and tips gratefully, then handed the wad of cash to Doc as the last of their second audience left.

"That enough?" he asked nervously.

Doc shrugged with a shake of his head. "Hard to say. I know _1998 _prices for circuitry equipment, but not current day prices." He looked all around him. "We'd better get back to town, Marty, and see if we can't find a Radio Shack or similar establishment. Even then, I don't know if my estimated repairs will do the trick."

It took a little longer to catch a ride this time; the encroaching evening meant not as many cars passed, and the ones that did were mostly exhausted employees on their way home from work. Finally they managed to get a ride from an older man in a station wagon who blasted showtunes the entire way and sang along at full volume; both Marty and Doc would have ridden with anyone short of a serial killer by that time and didn't complain.

They found a Circuit Shack, which Marty could only assume to be a Radio Shack knock-off, on the edge of the city. Doc poked around on the shelves for nearly an hour, picking up small doo-dads and discarding them almost as quickly until he'd checked everything off on his list and brought his small pile to the cash register. Marty had spent the hour staring in awe at the televisions mounted on the wall and marveled that not only were they _flat and hanging on the wall, _but their pictures were clearer than anything he'd ever seen, even from the new DVD player he'd dropped a few hundred bucks for at their local Best Buy in 1998. Reading the television's descriptions, he smirked as he learned the pictures were in something called high definition, and he silently rued the fact that he'd need to wait another decade before he could watch the Lakers game with such crystal clarity.

Doc had enough leftover of their cash to pay for a cab back to the woods, despite the cab driver's obvious confusion as to why two oddly-dressed men wanted to be dropped near the forest. He tipped the man generously, mostly to stop the cascade of pointed questions, and ducked out of the cab and back to the woods, Marty close at his heels.

Two hours later saw Doc emerge from the engine compartment, a heavy expression on his face and shoulder hunched sadly. He collapsed on the trunk in front of the now-dead fire and put his face in his hands. Marty emerged a moment later, wearing the same harried look, and joined his friend.

"You tried Doc," he said quietly after a moment, not looking at Doc. It was all he could offer at the moment.

"I'm sorry, Marty," Doc answered gently. "I don't know what else to do. Without my own laboratory and my own tools, I...I'm sorry."

"We'll find a way," Marty whispered. "We always find a way."

Doc heaved a sigh, folding his hands in his lap. "I know you don't want to hear a bunch of mumbo jumbo about this circuit or that wiring. But needless to say, the critical elements _needed _for time travel are so beyond repair..." He trailed off here, letting Marty fill in the void with his own imagination. "It can fly, Marty...but it can't get us back to 1998."

They'd spent a tense two hours on the floor of the engine compartment, Doc working quickly and methodically in a way that never ceased to be a fascination for Marty. He'd watched Doc work since he was a teenager working in the scientist's lab earning fifteen bucks a day to hand him a wrench or a pipette, or run out to various stores to get supplies, or just going next door to get some lunch. In all that time, Doc had never been at a loss for what to do next.

The feeling of deep unease that had been sitting in his stomach for most of the day now roared to life as Marty faced the very real prospect of never getting home again.

"We'll find a way," he repeated, if only to convince himself. "There's _always _a way."

The tension that permeated the air was suddenly and violently broken, as without warning three figures crashed through the bushes in front of them. Though they were silhouetted against the sun that had nearly set, Marty could just make out the fact that all three of them were covered in bandages.

One member of the group, a dark haired man, took one look at Doc and Marty, gasped hoarsely, and cried, "Father!"


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13 – The Accident_

* * *

><p><strong>June 27<strong>**th****, 2011  
><strong>**2011 Counterparts**

Jules awoke with a jerk as a sunbeam hit him directly in the face. He fought with lucidity for a moment before realizing three important things: He was alone in Verne's SUV. The SUV was parked in front of a rest stop that contained a food court. His hunger demanded that he visit said food court immediately in search of nourishment.

He stumbled out of the car, struggling to stand up-right despite the crick in his back born of a long nap in the front seat. Stretching as best he could and squinting in the bright light of the morning sun, he staggered forward, no doubt unnerving the elderly woman sitting on a bench who clutched her purse protectively as he passed. After twirling several times in place trying to catch sight of either Marty or Verne, his bladder sharply reminded him that business needed to be attended to after his sleep, and he quickly made his way inside.

Jules untucked one end of his shirt and used it to push open the door to the men's restroom, yawned, and got to work in front of the urinal. He began to concentrate on a particularly vexing quadratic equation that he'd been toiling with over for the past eight weeks, when someone in a stall behind him called in a sing-song voice, "Don't turn around!"

"Wha - " Jules sputtered, startled by the noise.

"Jus' walk awaaay!" the voice cried again.

"Sir, I regret that such a thing is, at the very least, biologically _uncomfortable _at present - "

"I don't want to see you nake-kaaahaaad!"

"I have no intention - "

"Ah'm letting you gooo-hooo, but I won't let you knoooow - "

Jules scoffed. "Verne? Verne! Is that you?"

"What? What?" the familiar voice of Verne said in an irritated tone. "Jules?"

"What in the terrestrial orb are you doing? Are you _singing?_"

"I've got my iPod on," Verne explained. A moment later the toilet flushed and Verne emerged from the stall, sticking his iPod and earphones in his pocket. "Helps me wake up."

"I see." Jules finished and joined his brother at the row of sinks. "The lyric is not, 'I don't want to see you naked.'"

"Well I don't want to see you naked, either." Verne returned his brother's scowl with a playful grin. He laughed. "C'mon, lighten up. That's what it sounds like, so I've always sung it that way."

"Pleasing to see that in a universe of endless variables, your morning routine of caterwauling hasn't changed since the mid-90's," Jules commented. "Where is Martin?"

"Search me. Last I saw he was walking around the parking lot, looking like he had the world on his shoulders." Verne splashed some water on his face and then inhaled dramatically, thumping his chest a few times. "Ahhh! I feel like a new man!"

Verne ventured forth to the McDonalds in the food court to get breakfast for himself while Jules meandered around the large, bright rest stop and eventually wandered into a store that sold health-nut type food to go. While inspecting a rack of what could only be described as Slim-Jim shaped pieces of tofu wrapped in recycled plastic, Jules toyed with the notion of also obtaining a grease-laden breakfast but decided against it. He wasn't exactly a strict nutritionist in his eating habits, but his system was unaccustomed to the types of food Marty and Verne were comfortable eating on the road, and eventually settled on some sort of fresh seafood burrito, which he heated in the store's microwave before walking back out to the car.

By that time, Verne had snarfed down his three sausage McMuffins in the front seat of the car. Marty had jumped in the back seat and Verne greeted him with his mouth full. "Hey Marty! Did you get some breakfast?"

"I'm not too hungry just now," Marty said. Verne's eyes softened.

"Everything ok?" he asked. "You look a little...uh, down."

"Yeah, just...it was a long night," Marty replied. He grabbed a pillow from the back and began smooshing it into shape. He laid across the backseat trying to get comfortable. "Look, I think I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up when we get to the border of New Jersey, all right?"

"Absolutely," Verne promised.

Jules got in the passenger's seat a moment later, burrito still cupped in his hand. "Are we off, then?"

Five minutes later saw them cruising at sixty five miles an hour down the highway. Verne tugged at the collar of his shirt and squirmed. "Anybody else hot?" he asked in a weak voice.

"Not I."

"Marty?"

"He's asleep, Verne."

Another few moments passed.

"Are you _sure _you're not hot?"

"I am comfortable." Jules took another bite of his breakfast and threw a quick glance to his brother, and then did a double take. "Brother, are those - are those _hives _on your neck?"

"What?" Verne felt his neck and sure enough, small bumps had appeared. Instantly, he began to scratch them ferociously.

"Verne, are you experiencing medical distress?" Jules asked, his voice steadily rising to an alarmed tone.

"I'm - I'm fine - " he wheezed, alternately scratching his neck and pulling at his collar. He turned the A/C up as high as it would go and adjusted the vents to blow directly on his face. "Just - Just so _hot." _

"Perhaps you should pull over - "

"It's - I'm fine, I just - " Verne finally stole a glance at his brother and caught sight of the burrito gripped in his hand. "Jules, what're you eating?"

"I am uncertain as to its exact origin," Jules noted as he studied the burrito's contents skeptically. "Some sort of sea life, I imagine."

"Oh God!" Verne cried. In his panic, he jerked the wheel slightly, causing them to careen momentarily into the other lane. The jolt caused Marty's head to slam against the door and he sat up, clutching the side of his face.

"What the hell's going on up there?" he demanded.

"It's shellfish! It's _shellfish _in that burrito!"

"It is possible," Jules agreed. "Is there a problem?"

"I'm _terribly allergic _to shellfish!" Verne blurted, his voice wavering. Jules' eyes became wide.

"I knew you had a slight allergy when you were younger, Verne, but I had no idea that the very smell caused a reaction!"

"The allergy got worse as I got older! _Much, much _worse!" Verne's vision began to blur. "Oh God! Oh God oh God oh God!"

"Pull over!" Marty shouted.

Jules had opened the window to throw the offending article out when all of a sudden it seemed as though the ground was rising up to meet him. The next thing he knew, he was being thrown out of his seat and onto the ceiling of the car. The tumble seemed endless and was punctuated by the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass; he fumbled blindly for Verne but a sudden, last _whomp _tossed him violently into the backseat, hitting his head hard on the headrest.

Everything was dim and quiet for a moment. He fought to regain his senses and forced his eyes open.

"Verne?" he was already calling in a feeble voice even before his eyes had adjusted. A jolt of fear tore through him as he spied the profile of his brother's face covered in blood in the front seat. A shout ripped from him, seemingly without his permission, and he clamored into the front seat, Marty's fate temporarily forgotten.

_Please, not my brother too, _Jules silently prayed to whatever omniscient power existed in the universe. Verne's face was already swollen and blood seeped from several abrasions; Jules felt tears come to his eyes for the first time in years as he helplessly shook his younger brother, who remained unconscious. "No. Please, please no," Jules whispered desperately, now reduced to gently patting Verne's blood-streaked face.

"Jules? Verne?" Marty's voice called sluggishly from the back. "What happened? You ok?"

Jules didn't answer; all of his attention remained focused on Verne. "Please Verne," he repeated quietly, as if Verne could hear him. "We lost Mother to a car accident; I can't lose you too. Please, for the love of God, _wake up!" _

"Verne? Oh God, Verney!" Marty cried, catching his first glimpse of Verne. He kicked the car door as hard as he could several times until it gave, then rushed out and threw open the driver's side door. Marty's breath caught in his throat.

A tear finally escaped the hold of Jules' eye and cascaded down his cheek as Jules held steadfastly to his brother's torn shirt. He shut his eyes tightly; he wasn't a religious man, but nonetheless, he sent a silent prayer to the heavens: _Please, Father, wherever you are - please help!_

As if on cue, Verne's eyes fluttered slowly and eventually opened, unfocused but very much alive. "J-Jules? What happened?" he rasped.

Jules swallowed a sob and hugged his brother to him tightly. Marty collapsed on the ground from relief, burying his face in his hands.

"Hey, you guys need an ambulance!" a voice shouted from above them. Marty turned to see a man looking down on them from where their ruined car lay at the bottom of a ditch. The man struggled down the hill, a cell phone in his hand. "You guys all right?"

"Yeah," Marty stammered. He threw another glance inside the car, where Jules still wore a terrified expression and had a death grip on his brother. "We need some help here."

Twenty minutes later, Verne groggily watched the ceiling of the emergency room speed past him as he was wheeled inside. Jules and Marty were able to stagger in under their own power, but just barely. Within an hour, they'd all been patched up by the ER doctors. Jules had escaped the accident with the least injuries - a few large, smarting bruises and lacerations to his face and chest, while Marty had a slight concussion and cuts on his hands and face. Verne hadn't fared quite so well, and sat up in a hospital bed with his wrist in a cast, bandages covering much of his face, and stitches on his lower lip.

But they were all alive.

Jules limped into Verne's room with Marty close behind them. He clapped a hand on Verne's shoulder, a rare gesture of affection, and did his best at a smile. "I thought I might have lost you," he whispered to him.

"Brown? Brown?" a voice echoed through the hallway.

Verne shifted slightly and hollered, "In here! _Two _Browns!"

An officer, bearing a pair of handcuffs, entered the room slowly. His gaze roved over Verne for a moment, taking in his injuries. "Verne Brown?"

"That's me."

Jules arched an eyebrow. "We have just spoken to an officer about the car accident, sir. Is there something else we can do for you?"

"You can keep quiet," the officer returned in a flat voice, giving Jules a steely look. His attention turned back to Verne. "I understand you were the driver in today's accident."

"That's right." Verne gave the officer a quizzical look. "I was having an allergic reaction, but I'm all right now. They gave me a shot of antihistamine - "

"That isn't what I'm here about." The officer sat down on one of the chairs and flipped open a file on the bed, looking at it critically. "Were you also having an allergic reaction when you flipped that car seven years ago?"

Verne's face fell; he didn't like where this was going. "Uh, no. No, officer, I wasn't. The road was wet and I hydroplaned."

"I see." The officer closed the file in front of him. "Look, I've seen all types of accidents in my time, and this one had all the hallmarks of a drunk driving accident."

Verne's jaw dropped. "Drunk? You think I'm _drunk?" _

"I found _this _on the floor of the driver's seat." With this, the officer plunked a corked, unlabeled vial on the bed in front of them. "It's corked, but it has been opened. I don't need to tell you that having an open container of alcohol in a moving vehicle is a violation under Pennsylvania law, and this vial's got an alcohol content high enough to make a pretty good case that you - or all of you - were drinking."

"I've never seen that before!" Verne cried frantically. "I don't even know what the hell that is!"

"It's a homemade sedative, officer, nothing more," Jules piped up from behind. All eyes turned to him; he seemed to cower slightly in their gaze. "You see, I'm a chemist and often concoct my own household pharmaceuticals. It _does _have an alcohol content, like many liquid sleep aids on the market, but the majority of the ingredients are herbal in nature."

The officer looked at Jules steadily for a moment and then burst into peels of laughter. "A homemade sedative! I thought I'd heard 'em all, but _that's _a new one!"

"But it is!" Jules protested, balling his fists at his sides. "We had a long car journey ahead of us, and as I am occasionally afflicted with insomnia when sleeping in a new place, I thought it pertinent to bring along a sedative to aid my sleep should I need it!"

"Well, that's for the guys in the lab to decide," the officer said, still laughing slightly. He dropped the vial into his pocket and stood. "As for now, Verne Brown, I'll need you to stay put. We'll undoubtedly have some more questions for you. You other two - come on with me."

Verne threw Jules a look that could kill, but nevertheless Jules and Marty followed the officer out. He left them at the emergency room doors and disappeared off down the hallway. Jules and Marty exited the doors, both wanting to clear their heads in the fresh air. Marty stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Jules, why the hell didn't you tell us?" Marty implored.

"I'm sorry, Martin," Jules said, a confused look crossing his face. "It did not occur to me that my formula would be legally construed as an open container of alcohol."

Marty sighed and began to pace. "God knows how long this is going to take. We're running out of time."

"I am cognizant of that fact."

"If we don't get to Doc in time...I don't even want to _think _about it..."

"Nor do I."

Marty bit his lip and gazed off into the distance, his mind racing. Jules sank down onto a bench, his knees weak and his heart heavy. He felt as though he were a blade of grass that had been crushed underfoot, and no more important than that, either. "I am so sorry, Marty," he repeated softly, putting his face in his hands. "I have systematically failed at everything I have tried to do, and I had no right bringing you and Verne into it."

"You haven't failed at everything, Jules," Marty said impatiently.

"Yes, I have." Jules spoke with unwaveringly certainty. "I fail to invent anything other than components to be used in consumer items that have no real purpose. I failed to make a time machine of my own. I failed to finish my PhD, failed to make friends, failed to keep my brother out of the trouble that I caused. The only reason we're on this insane journey is because I failed to correctly contain chemicals I was obviously unfit to handle. The only reason we're risking interrupting the timeline is due to my own negligence. The only reason we cannot take a plane is because of me, the only reason my only brother is sitting in a hospital swathed in bandages and being treated like a criminal is because - " Jules stopped here, unable to go on. A lump rose in his throat and unwanted tears brimmed in his eyes; he wiped these away hastily, but Marty had already caught sight of them. Jules sniffed, willing with everything he had in him to keep the tears from coming, but a lifetime of failures beckoned at the forefront of his consciousness. "Worst of all," he uttered huskily, "Worst of all, I have put you and my brother in very real danger because of my own stupidity. The crowning failure of my life, Marty, is that I am not, nor will I ever be, half the scientist my father was, and the tragedy is that it's all I've ever wanted."

Marty's gaze softened somewhat and he sat down next to Jules, patting him on the back. He looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking. "You know the happiest I ever saw Doc?" He didn't wait for an answer and continued, "It wasn't when the DeLorean made its first successful run. Wasn't when he managed to see me off in 1885 when I headed back to 1985 in that old DeLorean...wasn't even the time Verne managed not to fail algebra one semester. The happiest I ever saw the Doc was when he was standing on that time train in 1985, right after I'd come back, and introduced me to you and Verne. That was the happiest I ever saw Clara, too. They were the happiest when they were with you guys. He was so proud of you, Jules, he - " Marty stopped and took a breath. "Look, so you're not Doc Brown. _Nobody _could be Doc Brown _except _Doc Brown, just as no one could be Jules Brown except Jules Brown. Doc wouldn't have wanted you to live your life trying to be anybody except who you already are. And if it's good enough for Doc, it's got to be good enough for you too, right?"

Jules ran his hands over his face; he wished he could believe it.

It was nearly two o'clock by the time Verne emerged from the hospital, looking wan and exhausted as he approached Jules and Marty, who had sat more or less silently since their conversation.

"Can you leave?" Marty asked hopefully, rising to his feet.

"Yeah. I'm clear to go. No charges being brought against me or anything, seeing as how I passed a breathalyzer test with flying colors," Verne answered pointedly, staring daggers at his brother. "But because I no longer possess a _car, _I'm a little lost on how to proceed."

Jules also rose to his feet nervously. "We do still have quite a ways to go. Perhaps we can convince a taxi to take us the rest of the way - seeing as how the accident, and subsequent investigation, was more or less entirely my fault, I will gladly pay - "

"More or less?" Verne mimicked in a low, dangerous voice, walking a few paces until he was face to face with his brother. _"More or less? _Jules, for Christ's sake, it was _all _your fault! _Your _stupid breakfast gave me an allergic reaction, _despite _you knowing about my allergy - "

"I was not aware that fumes alone - "

" - and then _because _of that reaction, I lost control and _totaled my car, broke my wrist, and had nineteen stitches put in my lip. _You _hid alcohol in the car _for the police to find, which meant I had to be interviewed by practically the _entire goddamn police force _of this town who _all fervently believed _I was some sort of drunk. If I'd been charged with drunk driving, I would have lost my _license, _my _job _and my _kids _because of it. And _now, _unless we find a way to get to all the way to _New Jersey _by sundown, your _stupid _contraption will destroy Hill Valley! It's _all _your fault, Jules!" he roared. "My entire _life _is falling down around me, and I can't even count on you to do things a _sane human being _would do, let alone a brother!" He exhaled sharply, his entire body shaking in rage, and then pointed a finger at Jules. "Jules, I swear that if we get out of this, I'm leaving Hill Valley immediately and I'm never coming back. I don't want a goddamn thing to do with your _inventions _or your _life _ever again_, _understand?"

Jules did his best to hide a heartbroken expression by immediately looking away. "Y-Yes. Yes, I understand," he stammered weakly. "As you wish, Verne. We shall part company when this is behind us."

During this altercation, Marty had hung back and watched with a growing despondency. His mind desperately tried to think of something - _anything - _that Doc or Clara might have said to either of their boys in such a situation, but he was drawing a blank. As Verne stalked off into the parking lot, already speaking to a taxi company on his cell phone (or, screaming into the phone was more like it), he put a hand on Jules' shoulder. "Jules, I..." He broke off here, unable to find anything to say.

"It's fine, Martin," Jules murmured as he sat back down on the bench. "There isn't anything you can say to change the situation anyway."

A half hour later, a yellow van pulled into the parking lot with the words "Long Distance Shuttle" written on the side in pink ink, with a cartoon mouse carrying a suitcase etched on the side whose speech bubble read, _We Go the Distance! _Marty, Jules and Verne all climbed inside, with Marty and Verne in the second row and Jules alone in the back, where he sat silent and unmoving after he strapped himself in.

"West Orange, right?" the driver said, lighting a cigarette.

"Right. And can we go as quick as we can? We're running late already."

"Sure, sure," the driver said amiably as they pulled out onto the highway. "Get you there fast as I can."

No one dared speak a word the entire ride, the tension heavy enough to slice through with a knife. Marty tried in vain to sleep despite his body still screaming with exhaustion after the accident, but Verne was soon fast asleep in his seat, emitting little snorts and snores intermittently. Only Jules was wide awake for the entire ride, gazing out of the windows blankly, his mind far away from the drab confines of the cab.

The sun had already set by the time they rolled into West Orange. Marty, struggling to remember any shred of information about he and Doc's excursion in 1998 _(why _was it getting harder and harder to remember the more he thought about it?), instructed the cabbie to keep driving until he reached a large forest north of town. This he did, and before long they were stopped at the side of the road at the campground entrance to the forest. Marty and Verne jumped out while Jules dutifully paid the driver along with a large tip. The three men stretched and suddenly, as if the implications of their trip hit them all at once, they stood looking at one another, unsure how to proceed further.

"All right, some ground rules," Marty declared finally, feeling that he should take charge. "Remember, these are the 1998 versions of me and Doc, and they might not be any too happy to see us. Doc was a real stickler for keeping future selves and past selves away from one another, so he might take some convincing. Jules, Verne - not a _word _about the fact that Doc and Clara aren't around in 2011, all right? And as much as possible, keep away from any personal anecdotes about your lives that hadn't already happened in 1998." He heaved a sigh. "We're almost there, guys. Ready?"

Jules and Verne nodded, somewhat apprehensively.

They began their trek by straying off the trails, as Marty knew he and Doc wouldn't have parked the time train anywhere that was easily detectable by hikers and campers. He tried to force his mind into imparting memories of that experience that might help him find their way, but no matter how hard he concentrated, no concrete memories came back to him. _Is it the concussion? _Marty wondered idly to himself. _But you'd think I'd remember __something__ – especially considering that a 2011 counterpart is about to walk smack dab into his own 1998 counterpart – but why does it feel as though there's just a huge gap in my memory where this stuff should be? _

He saw a few lights ahead in what looked like a clearing. His heart jumped and he started for it, fighting his way through brush and branches. The outline of the time train that he hadn't seen in years began to come into focus. Jules, sensing that they were close, moved to the front of the pack.

"We'll find a way." Marty startled as he heard a faint iteration of his younger voice coming from the clearing. "There's _always _a way."

They all heard it. Jules seemed to dive headlong into the clearing without any grace, and upon seeing the much-missed and familiar face of his father, the only thing that came out of his mouth was a strangled cry of, "Father!"


End file.
